BOSfOW  COLLEGE 

SCHOOL  OF  MANAGEMENT  LIBRARY 


.  .  S'  ■  — 


— 


Zbe  Catholic  %tbrai\>— 3 


\ 

S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


ROEHAMPTON : 
PRINTED  BY  JOHN  GRIFFIN. 


1 


S.  ANTONINO 

AND 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


BY 

THE  REV.  BEDE  JARRETT,  O.P. 


LONDON  : 

THE  MANRESA  PRESS,  ROEHAMPTON,  S.W. 
B.  HERDER,  68,  GREAT  RUSSELL  STREET,  VV.C. 


1914 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 

SCHOOL  OF  MANAGEMfiNT  LIBRARY 


IRtbtl  ©bstat 


S.  GEORGIUS  KIERAN  HYLAND,  S.T.D., 

CENSOR  DEPUTATUS 


imprimatur : 

-p  PETRUS  EPUS  SOUTHWARC. 


51014- 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  chief  justification  that  can  be  urged  for  this 
Life  of  S.  Antonino  is  to  be  derived  from  the  value 
of  his  economic  theories.  These  are  so  eminently 
reasonable  and  yet  so  fLamingly  ideal,,  so  soberly 
described  by  him  and  yet  so  sincerely  Christian, 
that  they  must  make  their  appeal  to  every  reader. 
We  are  so  often  repeating  that  we  live  in  a  time  of 
crisis,  that  civilization  stands  at  the  cross-ways,  that 
the  outlook  towards  the  future  promises  few  pros¬ 
pects  of  hope ;  we  are  so  increasingly  struck  by  the 
difficulties  that  loom  ahead  of  us,  so  terrified  even 
by  the  signs  of  the  times,  that  it  is  surely  good  for 
us  to  watch  how  another,  in  a  period  of  stress  and 
trouble,  rose  to  the  height  of  his  great  position  and 
brought  an  answer  to  the  questionings  of  his  own 
generation. 

For  the  times  were  certainly  troublous  all  over 
Europe,  when  S.  Antonino  was  passing  through  his 
boyhood.  In  religion  he  found  that  Christendom 
was  itself  driven  asunder  over  the  succession  to  the 
Papacy.  Two,  and,  later,  three  claimants  disputed 
the  throne  of  the  Fisherman.  This  seemed  to  so 
many  at  that  time,  who  were  filled  with  deep  rever¬ 
ence  for  the  Bride  of  Christ,  as  the  hardest  trial  to 
Faith.  What  did  the  ravage  of  the  Plague  matter, 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 


or  the  relaxation  of  the  bonds  of  religious  life,  com¬ 
pared  with  this  seeming  failure  of  that  power, 
which,  in  their  eyes,  alone  could  have  restored 
everything  in  Christ?  The  city  might  still  be  set 
upon  its  hill,  yet  what  did  that  advantage  the  people 
of  God  if  a  thick  mist  of  clouds  had  drifted  round 
its  pinnacles  and  towers? 

The  spirit,  too,  of  lawlessness  and  revolt  was 
abroad  all  over  the  West.  In  England  the  rising  of 
the  Peasantry,  which  we  commonly  associate  with 
Wat  Tyler  and  John  Ball,  “  the  mad  priest  of 
Kent,”  had  been  at  one  time  sufficiently  serious  to 
make  the  stability  of  the  Crown  itself  seem  for  the 
moment  in  imminent  peril :  indeed,  only  the  courage 
of  the  boy  King  and  the  lying  promise  of  instant  re¬ 
form  broke  up  perhaps  the  most  formidable  rebel¬ 
lion  that  has  ever  threatened  this  country.  Nor  was 
this  Peasant  Revolt  an  isolated  occurrence,  but  it 
was  rather  symptomatic  of  a  European  movement, 
which  some  indeed  have  attempted  to  explain  by 
suggesting  that  it  was  supported  by  a  definite  or¬ 
ganization,  international  and  anti-social.  The  next 
year  saw  a  similar  disturbance  in  Florence.  The 
Ciompi,  or  disfranchised  masses,  tired  of  their  ex¬ 
ploitation  by  the  few  freeman  who  managed  the 
whole  government  of  the  City,  attempted  to  over¬ 
turn  the  machinery  of  the  Republic.  At  the  root 
of  this  trouble,  as  at  the  root  of  the  English  Revolt, 


INTRODUCTION 


Vll 


was  certainly  an  economic  grievance,  the  scarcity 
of  wages,  the  dearness  of  provisions,  and  the  im¬ 
memorial  bondage  which  custom  imposed  upon  the 
worker.  The  effect  of  this  outbreak  might  have 
been  extremely  serious  but  for  the  exertions  of 
Michel  Lando,  a  huge  wool-comber,  who  had  been 
elected,  under  the  threat  of  mob  violence,  to  the 
supreme  magistracy  of  Florence.  He  had  great 
restraining  influence  over  his  own  party,  and  by  the 
exercise  of  his  personal  ascendancy,  and  also,  it 
must  be  added,  by  the  use  of  his  physical  strength, 
he  succeeded  in  moderating  the  demands  of  his 
followers  and  preventing  any  wanton  destruction  or 
even  much  disorder  at  all. 

A  third  revolt  which,,  in  its  synchronism,  again 
suggests  some  definite  connection  between  France 
and  the  labour-leaders  in  England  and  Italy,  was 
the  rising  of  the  Maillotins  of  Paris.  In  1382  the 
re-imposition  of  taxes,,  which  the  King  had  pro¬ 
mised  to  remit,  passed  the  limit  of  popular  patience, 
and  the  people  barricaded  the  streets  and  overawed 
the  Government.  The  obnoxious  taxes  were  re¬ 
pealed,  a  complete  amnesty  promised  to  all  the 
rebels,  and  the  civic  privileges  and  charters  con¬ 
firmed.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  English  rising, 
the  terms  given  by  Government  were  never 
observed.  So  long  as  the  mob  was  strong  enough 
to  defend  its  own  interests  it  could  live  in  impunity. 


Vlll 


INTRODUCTION 


It  even  offered  a  large  sum  of  money  to  the  Crown 
in  gratitude  for  its  favours.  But  the  moment  that 
an  army  strong  in  repute,,  after  a  decisive  victory 
over  the  Flemings,  approached  the  city,  the  royal 
officials  tore  up  their  treaties,  broke  the  oaths  even 
of  amnesty,  and  after  punishing  the  leaders  of  the 
revolt  with  the  extreme  rigour  of  the  law,  refused 
to  acknowledge  the  liberties  granted  to  the  city. 
The  spirit  of  revolt  had  been  met  in  every  case  by 
the  superiority  of  physical  force  and  by  a  cynical 
disregard  for  all  agreements  made  under  the  stress 
of  popular  agitation. 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  this  series  of  revolts 
by  the  people  was  followed  by  a  series  of  deposi¬ 
tions  of  ruling  sovereigns  by  their  subjects  and  by 
a  corresponding  series  of  civil  wars.  The  deposi¬ 
tion  of  Richard  1 1 .  of  England  at  the  hands  of  the 
House  of  Lancaster,,  as  Shakespeare  has  cleverly 
shown  in  his  historical  plays,  led  to  the  Wars  of 
the  Roses,  which,  however,  were  delayed  by  the  suc¬ 
cess  of  Henry  V.  in  draining  all  military  forces 
out  of  the  Kingdom  by  engaging  them  in  a  war 
with  France.  That  campaign  of  Agincourt  gave 
the  House  of  Lancaster  a  respite,  which,  however, 
the  youth  and  weakness  of  Henry  VI.  prevented 
from  being  of  much  avail. 

But  in  Germany  civil  war  followed  almost  im¬ 
mediately  on  the  deposition  of  Wenzel,  'King  of 


INTRODUCTION 


IX 


the  Romans.  His  cousin,  Jost,  the  evil  genius  of 
the  House  of  Luxemberg,  attempted  to  secure  for 
himself  the  vacant  dignity,  but  found  that  Wenzel’s 
brother,  Sigismund,  was  a  serious  rival  for  the 
Crown.  Together  they  fought  for  its  possession, 
and  in  their  struggle,  it  nearly  escaped  from  them 
altogether,  but  the  timely  and  sudden  death  of  Jost 
left  Sigismund  alone  as  head  of  the  Empire. 

The  Church  followed  along  the  same  lines  of 
procedure,  and  a  portion  of  it,  by  means  of  some 
recalcitrant  Cardinals,  deposed  the  rival  Pontiffs. 
Deposition  was  one  of  the  remedies  which  seemed 
then  to  have  suggested  itself  as  an  easy  way  out  of 
difficulties.  If  rulers  did  not  fulfil  their  appointed 
duties  to  the  satisfaction  of  their  subjects,  the  most 
obvious  method,  the  simplest,  was  to  get  rid  of  them 
and  substitute  for  them  others  who  would  be  likely 
to  be  more  useful  to  the  general  good.  This  plan 
has  always  found  favour  with  men  whose  ideas  of 
redress  are  limited  to  the  narrow  outlook  of  their 
own  generation.  They  forget,  perhaps  do  not  care 
to  remember,  that  the  result  of  this  is  but  to  sow  the 
seeds  of  civil  war.  The  adherents  of  the  deposed 
monarch,  when  his  evil  deeds  have  had  time  to  lose 
their  sting,  point  with  scorn  to  the  ill-success  of  the 
newer  dynasty,  and  have  always  plenty  of  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  noticing  that  promises  made,  when  the 
throne  was  as  yet  only  in  sight,  have  been  broken 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


when  policy  no  longer  necessitated  their  being  kept. 
The  simplest  remedy  therefore  succeeds  only  for 
the  time,  and  conjures  up  itself  far  greater  evils 
than  it  can  allay.  In  the  Church,  in  France,  in 
Aragon  and  elsewhere,  came  a  crop  of  civil  wars, 
reaped  after  depositions. 

Then  with  the  healing  of  the  Schism  at  Con¬ 
stance,  where  the  rival  Popes  resigned,  but  were 
not  deposed,  came  a  note  of  peace.  The  disputes 
that  had  for  long  dissolved  the  unity  of  Christen¬ 
dom  were  almost  immediately  ended  by  compro¬ 
mise.  The  Hussites,  at  least  the  more  moderate 
party  among  them,  made  their  submission  on  the 
acceptance  by  the  Church  of  certain  articles 
which  satisfied  their  claims  in  the  theological  dis¬ 
pute.  Cosimo  dei  Medici,  whose  banishment 
from  Florence  had  unsettled  the  balance  of  power, 
was  brought  back  to  his  despotism  on  the  award  of 
the  Pontiff.  The  Papacy  itself  came  to  terms  with 
France  at  Bourges  and  with  Germany  at  Mainz, 
while  the  lengthy  Schism  that  had  split  for  cen¬ 
turies,  East  and  West,  was  healed  at  the  Council 
of  Florence  in  1439. 

Altogether  it  is  apparent  that  just  when  St. 
Antonino  was  coming  into  a  position  of  power  and 
influence,  Europe  was  itself  settling  down  after 
a  long  nightmare  of  plague,  schism,  risings,  de¬ 
positions,  and  civil  wars.  Hence  it  is,  no  doubt, 


INTRODUCTION 


Xl 


that  the  writings  of  the  Saint  are  filled  with  such 
optimism.  He  is  not  as  one  without  hope,  rather 
in  his  burning  sense  of  the  inherent  goodness  of 
human  nature,  in  his  steadfast  trust  in  the  value 
of  clear  teaching  to  a  world  ahungered  for  it,  his 
language  reminds  the  reader  of  the  glowing  de¬ 
clamation  of  the  French  Revolutionaries.  It  must 
be  admitted,  that  apart  from  some  definite  institu¬ 
tions  for  the  poor  and  sick  and  for  children,  the 
practical  effect  of  the  Archbishop’s  treatises  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  considerable.  He  does  not  ap¬ 
pear  to  have  in  any  way  changed  the  course  of  events 
in  matters  social  nor  to  have  converted  for  long  the 
public  opinion,  even  of  his  native  city,  to  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  justice.  Yet  it  is  something  to  have  held 
up  to  the  views  of  men  an  ideal  of  Christian  polity, 
of  social  life,  of  the  high  ethics  of  commerce.  It  is 
not  wholly  vain  for  the  spiritual  power  of  the  world 
to  have  shown  in  what  light  it  considered  the  prob¬ 
lems  of  human  destiny  and  the  progress  of  the  race. 
The  people  may  not  follow  the  vision,  but  woe  to 
the  prophet  who  is  silent,,  who  will  not  announce 
it  to  all  that  have  ears  to  hear!  Woe  especially 
to  the  prophet  who  is  oppressed,  numbed,  paralyzed, 
by  the  seeming  uselessness  of  telling  his  burden, 
and  who,  out  of  sheer  weariness  and  cynical 
despair,  is  made  dumb. 

We  say  a  prophet,  for  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten 


Xll 


INTRODUCTION 


that  the  Saint  writes  on  the  problems  of  economics 
only  as  a  moralist.  He  does  not  set  up  to  be  a  judge 
or  a  divider  except  from  the  point  of  view  of  moral 
justice.  In  his  volumes  there  is  no  pretence  of 
much  acquaintance  with  the  political  theories  of  his 
own  time,  except  in  so  far  as  they  touched  on 
matters  where  the  Church’s  guardianship  of  mor¬ 
ality  required  to  be  exercised.  But  it  is  just  in 
this  capacity  that  his  writings  are  most  valuable, 
for  it  is  rare  to  find  so  exquisite  a  judgment  as  his, 
so  fine  and  nice  in  its  appreciation  of  the  difficulties 
that  beset  the  life  of  trade.  Men  at  that  time,  how¬ 
ever  far  short  they  fell  of  the  ideal  of  perfect 
justice,  still  clung  to  the  principles  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith.  Their  laws  were  based  upon  the  accept¬ 
ance  of  the  Church’s  teaching,  though  the  adminis¬ 
tration  of  them  was  certainly  not  always  conducted 
in  a  spirit  of  mercy  and  truth.  Still  the  framework 
of  society  was  definitely  Christian,  and  men  con¬ 
tinuously  sought  to  discover  how  to  adjust  the  ex¬ 
periment  of  daily  life  to  the  changing  circumstances 
of  social  conditions.  That  this  was  so  is  evident 
from  the  way  in  which  S.  Antonino  was  called 
upon  by  men  of  all  classes  to  decide  for  them  knotty 
questions,  where  the  clear  lines  of  justice  and  right 
were  not  altogether  manifest.  He  was  appealed 
to  on  every  possible  occasion,  and  his  careful  and 
prudent  judgment  evidently  approved  itself  to  his 
questioners. 


INTRODUCTION 


Xlll 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  at  this 
date  the  position  of  the  merchants  in  Europe 
was  quite  considerable.  Even  in  England,  where 
the  baronage  and  feudal  chiefs  had  a  very  great  in¬ 
fluence  in  the  State,  the  great  families  were  enter¬ 
ing  into  trade,  and  the  trading  families  were  them¬ 
selves  taking  an  important  place  in  the  national 
affairs.  The  names  of  the  de  la  Poles,  who  rose 
from  commerce  to  the  highest  places  in  the  State, 
of  the  Cannynges,  whose  wealth  was  the  mainstay 
of  Bristol  and  whose  magnificent  Church  of  St. 
Mary  Redcliffe  remains  as  a  testimony  of  their 
splendour,  of  the  more  famous  Dick  Whittington, 
were  high  in  public  honour,  and  carried  weight  in 
the  national  councils.  But  in  Italy  the  free  cities  and 
republics  were  essentially  trading  centres,  and  there 
the  merchant  princes,  by  their  adventure,  their 
wealth,  their  judicious  patronage  of  the  arts,  took 
the  lead  in  the  direction  of  politics.  Where  com¬ 
merce  was  so  necessary  for  the  existence  of  the  city, 
it  naturally  had  a  preponderating  voice  in  the  con¬ 
duct  of  affairs. 

Moreover,  the  trade-routes  of  the  continent  were 
also  the  great  roadways  of  the  world.  Armies 
marching  to  battle  had  to  pass  along  by  the  centres 
of  manufacture  and  commerce.  Pilgrims  to  the 
shrines  of  Christendom  had  no  other  means  of  pro¬ 
gress  except  in  company  with  the  trading  caravans 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


that  went  up  and  down  the  world  with  the  pro¬ 
duce  of  loom,  of  harvest,  of  forest,  and  of  the 
generous  bounty  of  nature.  Consequently  all  the 
movements  of  the  world  made  their  advance  along 
the  lines  that  led  past  the  great  cities,  which  thus 
became  increasingly  concerned  in  all  political  hap¬ 
penings,  and  were  therefore  eager  to  take  their 
share  in  the  settlement  of  them.  Hence  at  the  time 
of  S.  Antonino  it  may  almost  be  said  that  the  older 
domination  of  the  West  by  the  Universities,  or  even 
by  the  kings,  had  given  way  to  the  rule  of  trade. 
The  sovereigns  themselves  based  their  policy  on  the 
economic  needs  of  their  subjects.  Their  wars  were 
fought  for  commercial  ends.  Their  counsellors 
were  not  unfrequently  taken  from  the  commercial 
classes.  Their  very  armies  were  paid  for  by  the 
contributions  of  traders,  who,  as  the  price  of  their 
subsidies,  extorted  from  Government,  in  return, 
fuller  commercial  privileges.  Even  the  advance 
of  the  Turk  was  now  resisted,  not  so  much  on  the 
plea  that  Constantinople  was  a  city  sacred  by  the 
consecration  of  Christian  worship,  but  as  the  great 
trade- door  between  East  and  West,  the  last  portal 
that  remained  for  the  entrance  into  Europe  of  the 
spice  trade,  the  precious  metals,  and  the  elaborate 
wealth  of  the  Orient.  It  was  trade  itself  that  set 
on  foot  the  great  discoveries  by  the  Portuguese  and 
Spaniards,  and  the  continuation  of  these  adventures 


INTRODUCTION 


XV 


depended  almost  wholly  on  the  amount  of  wealth 
that  they  were  supposed  to  bring  into  the  countries 
that  fitted  out  the  exploring  fleets.  We  know,  for 
example,  that  the  rounding  of  the  shoulder  of  West 
Africa  was  delayed  for  many  years  because  the 
number  of  slaves  brought  home  from  the  coast  was 
at  first  very  small,  insufficient  to  make  the  expedi¬ 
tions  pay. 

In  every  way,  therefore,  commerce  was  taking  up 
a  dominating  place  in  European  politics.  This  S. 
Antonino  could  see  as  well  as  any  one  else,  but  he 
saw  also  the  terrible  evils  such  an  event  was  bound  to 
bring  in  its  train  unless  something  were  done  to 
make  the  rule  of  the  rich  follow  the  laws  of  God. 
S.  Francis  of  Assissi  had  made  his  answer  to  the 
difficulty  at  an  earlier  stage  by  his  chivalrous  vows 
to  “  Lady  Poverty.”  But  that  high  ideal  was  ceas¬ 
ing  to  appeal  to  an  age  that  had  outgrown  the 
poetry  and  charm  of  such  a  voice.  Not  the  ideal 
of  renunciation,  not  the  Thebaid,  but  the  right  con¬ 
trol  of  the  springs  of  wealth  could  alone  save  the 
generations  that  were  to  follow  from  the  disastrous 
effect  of  this  overpowering  domination.  The  pur¬ 
suit  of  riches  appears  to  contest  with  sport  (per¬ 
haps  it  is  itself  part  of  the  same  spirit),  the  chief 
place  among  the  interests  that  fascinate  our  human 
energies.  Its  rule,  therefore,  is  not  unlikely  to 
banish  all  other  considerations  for  the  minds  of 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION 


men,  to  silence  conscience,  to  stifle  pity,  to  make 
honesty  only  a  policy  and  not  a  moral  or  ethical 
principle.  It  is  good  policy,  but  something  more. 

To  set  up  the  standard  of  Justice,  to  lay  the 
foundations  of  society  on  the  laws  of  God,  to  make 
men  look  at  economics  through  the  eyes  of  Faith 
was  the  high  endeavour  of  this  great  man. 

Did  he  succeed  or  fail?  Perhaps  the  reading 
of  his  theories,  of  his  very  words,  may  turn  our 
thoughts  to  find  therein  the  remedies  that  our  own 
age  still  needs.  Perhaps  the  suggestions  that  he 
makes  for  the  ultimate  settlement  of  all  social  prob¬ 
lems  by  the  principles  of  truth  and  justice  may 
bear  fruit  in  our  own  time.  Perhaps  we  ourselves 
may  help  to  answer  the  query,  whether  he  failed 
or  succeeded.  But  certainly  it  is,  above  all,  essen¬ 
tial  to  notice  this  witness  to  the  unseen  worth  of 
things,  this  trumpet-call  to  lay  up  treasure  in 
heaven.  “  And  when  the  time  comes,  as  come  it 
will,  when  society  as  a  whole  recognizes  that  big 
fortunes  and  starvation  are  alike  intolerable  and 
must  be  put  an  end  to,  God  grant  it  may  discover 
at  the  same  time  that  the  mad  rush  for  wealth  is 
folly  and  sin,  and  that  a  life  of  greater  leisure  in 
which  to  cultivate  the  higher  faculties  of  our  being 
and  the  sweeter  and  finer  sides  of  our  total  experi¬ 
ence  is  infinitely  to  be  preferred  to  the  life  of  fever 
and  tumult,  and  of  base  and  sordid  values,  that  so 
many  of  us  are  living  now.” 


CHRONICLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  EVENTS 
TO  SHOW  UNREST  GRADUALLY 
QUIETING. 


1 377.  Revolt  of  Peasantry  in  England. 

1378.  Revolt  of  disenfranchised  (Ciompi)  in 

Florence. 

Great  Schism  of  West. 

1382.  Revolt  of  mob  (Maillotins)  in  Paris. 

1389.  Birth  of  S.  Antonino  and  of  Cosimo  dei. 
Medici. 

1399.  Deposition  of  Richard  II.  in  England. 

1 400.  Deposition  of  Wenzel,  King  of  Romans. 
1405.  S.  Antonino  becomes  a  Dominican. 

1409.  Deposition  of  Papal  claimants  at  Council 

of  Pisa.  Election  of  Alexander. 

1410.  Civil  War  between  Burgundians  and  Ar- 

magnacs  in  France. 

Civil  War  between  Jost  and  Sigismund  in 
Germany. 

Civil  War  between  Ferdinand  of  Castile 

* 

and  James  of  Urgel  in  Spain. 

1417.  Election  of  Martin  V.  at  Constance  and 
End  of  Schism. 

1433.  Concordat  of  Compactata  with  Hussites. 

1434.  Recall  of  Cosimo  dei  Medici  to  Florence. 
b 


xvm 


CHRONICLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  EVENTS 


1438. 
-T  439- 


3446. 

J453- 

J459- 


Concordat  of  Bourges  between  France  and 
Papacy. 

Concordat  of  Mainz  between  Germany  and 
Papacy. 

Union  of  Latin  and  Greek  Churches  at 
Council  of  Florence. 

S.  Antonino  first  Prior  of  S.  Marco, 
Florence. 

S.  Antonino  appointed  Archbishop  of 
Florence  by  Eugenius  IV. 

Fall  of  Constantinople. 

Death  of  S.  Antonino. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  NIGHT  OF  FORE-BEING  .  .  I 

CHAPTER  II. 

BIRTH  AND  BOYHOOD  .  .  .II 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  YOUNG  DOMINICAN  .  .  .20 

.  CHAPTER  IV. 

AT  S.  MARCO  .  .  .  .  -30 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  GOOD  ARCHBISHOP  .  .  .38 

CHAPTER  VI. 

HIS  SOCIAL  LABOURS  .  .  .48 

CHAPTER  VII. 

HIS  SOCIAL  IDEALS  .  .  *57 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

HIS  OTHER  LITERARY  WORK  .  -79 

CHAPTER  IX. 

HIS  CHARACTER  .  .  .  .89 

CHAPTER  X. 

DEATH  AND  AFTER  .  .  .  -99 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  .  .  .  .  I08 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  NIGHT  OF  FORE-BEING. 

S.  Antonino  was  a  Florentine  of  the  Quatro- 
Cento,  a  writer  on  social  and  political  questions,  and 
a  canonised  Dominican  Archbishop.  His  claim, 
therefore,  on  us  is  threefold. 

As  a  Florentine  he  entered  into  a  splendid  in¬ 
heritance.  The  Revival  of  Learning,  whensoever 
we  date  its  beginnings,  had  at  his  birth  greatly  ad¬ 
vanced  in  its  stately  course.  Its  early  dawn  had 
flushed  all  Florence  with  a  passionate  desire  for  the 
beauties  of  the  antique  world.  Petrarch  and  Boc¬ 
caccio  had  given  their  readers  glimpses  of  a  love¬ 
liness  which  they  themselves  could  only  dimly  des¬ 
cry,  but  it  was  a  loveliness,  howsoever  uncertain, 
that  haunted  the  minds  of  succeeding  scholars. 
Then,  when  this  longing  for  the  treasures  of  an 
earlier  age  had  sufficiently  fired  the  imagination 
of  men,  the  first  step  was  taken  for  its  accomplish¬ 
ment  by  gathering  together  as  many  as  might  be 
found  of  the  precious  classic  manuscripts.  Even¬ 
tually  the  secret  of  Greek  and  Latin  composition 
was  extorted  from  their  silent  pages,  and  the  an¬ 
cient  tongues  began  to  be  written  with  the  spon¬ 
taneous  ease  and  grace  of  a  living  language.  But 
first  the  books  had  to  be  collected,  then  corrected, 
then  expounded.  Not  till  all  this  had  been  done 
could  there  be  any  familiarity  with  the  well-turned 
phrases  of  the  classic  mind,  so  different  from  the 

B 


2 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


mediaeval  mode.  Of  this  age  of  acquisition,  three 
names  stand  out  foremost  in  Florence,  Poggio 
Bracciolini,  Leonardo  Bruni,  and  Palla  Strozzi. 
Each  in  his  turn  roamed  over  Italy  or  despatched 
agents  world-wide  to  gather  into  one  and  house, 
within  the  city,  the  scattered  glories  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  Poggio  is  credited  with  the  discovery  of 
Quintillian’s  works  and  of  certain  of  the  lost  writ¬ 
ings  of  Cicero,  Lucretius,  Plautus,  etc.  Bruni  was 
the  great  translator,  whose  version  of  the  Apologia 
and  other  dialogues  of  Plato  and  of  the  Ethics  and 
Politics  of  Aristotle  were  considered  among  the 
great  achievements  of  the  time :  while  Palla  Strozzi 
is  an  earlier  type  of  the  literary  patron  which 
Cosimo  dei  Medici  was  to  make  so  fashionable 
in  Europe.  These  three  besides  may  be  looked 
upon,  in  their  several  ways,  as  the  founders  of  the 
Florentine  University  which  hardly  flourished  till 
their  day.  In  time  their  work  would  blossom  into 
most  beautiful  flowers  of  literature,  some  strangely 
petalled,  some  of  exotic  loveliness,  some  perfumed 
and  some  utterly  scentless,  or  concealing  beneath 
their  extreme  comeliness  a  poisoned  breath.  But 
this  was  rather  at  a  later  period  when  S.  Antonino 
had  passed  away  to  his  rest.  Simultaneously  with 
this  new  birth  in  literature  opened  the  Spring  of  the 
Arts  according  to  the  graceful  coloured  allegory 
of  Botticelli.  All  the  world  was  young  again.  The 
competition  for  the  second  gates  of  the  Florentine 
Baptistry  in  1401  marks  the  beginning  of  Renais¬ 
sance  sculpture  and  brings  into  prominence  the 
names  of  Brunelleschi,  Donatello,  and  Ghiberti, 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


3 


Then  arose  another  trinity  of  talent,  Masaccio,  Fra 
Angelico,  and  Fra  Lippi,  who  dipped  their  brushes 
in  the  colour-box  of  nature  and  painted  the  visions 
that  their  souls  had  seen.  Altogether  a  wonderful 
age,  this  dawn  of  the  Quatro-Cento,  with  its 
strong  piquant  personalities  in  the  realms  of  arts 
and  letters,  men  who  took  up  the  mantle  that  had 
fallen  from  the  shoulders  of  the  earlier  prophets. 
They  were  not  quite  so  simple,  so  ingenuous,  so 
religious  minded  as  were  their  fathers,  not  quite 
so  convinced  of  the  value  of  the  dolce  stil  nuovo, 
not  quite  so  full  of  the  eager  optimism  that  gave 
such  moving  life  to  the  writings  and  achievements 
of  their  immediate  predecessors.  It  is  true  that 
they  were  entering  into  the  kingdom  of  knowledge, 
but  also,  because  inevitably,  into  the  kingdom  of 
doubt.  Where  the  sunlight  is  brighter,  there  are 
the  darker  shadows. 

And  there  were  shadows  enough  to  be  found 
in  Florence.  The  political  and  constitutional  his¬ 
tory  of  this  city  is  a  difficult  and  intricate  affair. 
There  is  no  place  here  to  stop  and  disentangle  its 
threads.  In  a  passage  of  bitterness,  the  exiled 
Dante  addresses  thus  this  “  most  famous  and  most 
beautiful  daughter  of  Rome  ” : 

“  Thou  who  makest  such  fine-spun 
Provisions  that  to  middle  of  November 
Reaches  not  what  thou  in  October  spinnest, 

How  oft  within  the  time  of  thy  remembrance 
Laws,  money,  offices  and  usages 
Hast  thou  remodelled,  and  renewed  thy  members? 


4 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


And  if  thou  mind  thee  well  and  see  the  light, 
Thou  shalt  behold  thyself,  like  a  sick-woman 
Who  cannot  find  repose  upon  her  down 

But  by  her  tossing  wardeth  off  her  pain.” 

i  1:  U~>  iV-m  :  '  i  i  i 

a..!  '  j  1  1 

This  simile  sketches  with  sufficient  clearness  the 
unhealthy,  restless  constitution-making  that  went 
on  perpetually  in  Florence.  Perhaps  however  the 
poet  is  too  hard  in  his  judgment  on  this  wayward 
republic.  The  problem  was  in  a  manufacturing 
city  to  establish  an  artisan  democracy.  This  in 
itself  was  difficult  enough,  but  when  viewed  in  its 
circumstances  in  Florence  became  downright  im¬ 
possible.  For  the  landed  nobility  needed  a  strong 
hand  to  keep  them  in  check,  a  work  for  which  a 
democratic  form  of  government  is  eminently  un¬ 
fitted.  Democracy  again  seemed  hopeless  when 
faced  by  such  an  expansive  empire  as  Florence 
was  now  acquiring.  Athens  had  failed,  Carthage 
had  crumbled,  and  Rome  had  changed  her  re¬ 
publican  institutions,  when  they  found  themselves 
developing  into  an  imperial  State,  for  the  harmoniz¬ 
ing  of  freedom  and  sovereign-sway  needs  such  nice 
adjustment  as  the  mob  or  crowd  or  demos  is  too 
clumsy  to  achieve.  Efficiency  and  success  in  such 
an  undertaking  seem  to  require  an  oligarchy  or  a 
princedom.  To  this  separation  of  interests  between 
an  agricultural  gentry  outside  Florence  and  a  com¬ 
mercial  commonwealth  within,  was  added,  appar¬ 
ently,  a  racial  distinction;  for  all  the  Florentine 
Chroniclers  declare  that  the  nobility  were  Teutonic 
and  the  burghers  Italic.  Moreover  the  great  me- 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


5 


diaeval  party-cry  had  been  raised  not  in  vain  in  the 
city,  where  Ghibelline  feudal  lords  and  Guelfic 
merchants  fought  continually  in  the  streets.  These 
were  three  deep-rooted,  inevitable  causes  of  dis¬ 
cord,  and  their  effect  was  heightened  by  artificial 
checks  and  balances  which,  intended  originally  to 
prevent  the  legislature  or  the  executive  from  be¬ 
coming  arbitrary,  ended  by  paralysing  all  the  forces 
of  government.  Thus  the  Signory  and  the  Colleges 
could  block  each  other’s  designs;  and  the  Parte 
Gael  fa  (formed  to  prevent  any  Ghibelline  disturb¬ 
ance  and  ostensibly  distinct  from  government,  in 
reality  the  driving  power  of  government)  compli¬ 
cated  the  situation  by  its  anomalous  position  in 
which  it  divorced  power  from  responsibility. 

So  that  by  the  end  of  the  Fourteenth  Century 
the  people  were  ruled  by  a  close  democracy  which 
was  practically  an  aristocracy  or  rather  a  veiled 
kingship,  vested  in  a  single  family.  In  our  saint’s 
youth  this  organised  machinery  of  sovereignty  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  Albizzi,  but  it  was  soon  cap¬ 
tured  by  the  Medici,  who  continued  and  developed 
this  system  of  despotism.  It  is  clear  then  that  S. 
Antonino  was  bom  into  a  city  distracted  by  fac¬ 
tions,  divided  by  legislature  and  executive  arti¬ 
ficially,  set  in  opposition,  filled  with  an  artisan 
population  at  once  manufacturing  and  commercial, 
and  guided  by  a  band  of  merchant  princes  whose 
banks  sometimes  held  in  fee  whole  kingdoms  (as 
when  Edward  III.  pawned  England  to  the  Bardi 
for  1,365,000  gold  florins),  yet  who  in  speech, 
dress,  and  theoretic  political  power  were  hardly  at 


6 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


all  raised  above  the  citizens  they  employed. 
Finally  it  must  be  noted  that  out  of  a  population  of 
about  90,000  inhabitants,  only  4,000  possessed  the 
franchise.  Such  a  state  of  social  disorganisation 
was  bound  to  be  reproductive  of  terrible  evils, 
economic  and  moral. 

But  the  chief  cause  of  the  moral  evils  that  then 
afflicted  Florence,  has  been  traced  to  the  Great 
Pestilence,  which  came  down  on  Europe  in  1348. 
Travelling  from  the  East,  its  arrival  could  be  pre¬ 
dicted  almost  exactly  in  its  even  deliberate  march 
across  the  Western  world.  Its  suddenness,  the  un¬ 
mistakable  nature  of  its  symptoms,  the  irresist¬ 
ibleness  of  its  attack,  the  wholesale  destruction  it 
effected  have  caused  its  horror  to  be  stamped  across 
the  literature  of  the  Fourteenth  Century.  On  the 
English  writers  of  that  period,  on  Langland, 
Chaucer,  Wycliffe,  who  witnessed  it  in  their  most 
impressionable  years,  falls  a  hush,  the  silence  of 
terror.  Still  from  the  graphic  pages  of  Boccaccio  a 
dreadful  picture  of  its  dissolving  force  can  be 
seen.  It  broke  up  the  social  structure  of  Europe 
by  the  swift  removal  of  one-third  of  its  population. 
It  stunned  men,  through  their  feeling  of  complete 
helplessness,  into  a  feverish  disregard  of  all  moral 
law. 

Moreover  the  terrible  mortality  in  the  monas¬ 
teries  made  the  religious  superiors  eager  to  fill  up 
the  vacant  places.  Any  who  presented  themselves 
were  accepted,  boys,  unlettered,  inefficient.  The 
strength  of  the  rule  was  diluted,  its  standard 
lowered  to  encourage  these  novices  to  persevere. 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


7 


Fasts  were  forgotten,  poverty  disappeared,  divine 
office  was  neglected.  Then  on  the  heels  of  all  this 
distress  came  the  terrible  Schism  of  the  West  when 
the  faithful  saw  two,  eventually  three,  claimants  to 
the  Papacy  disputing  the  obedience  of  the  Nations. 
This  second  horror  was  even  more  appalling  than 
the  first.  S.  Catherine  of  Siena  wrote  in  a  letter: 
“For  everything  else  like  war,  dishonour,  and  other 
tribulations  would  seem  less  than  straw  in  com¬ 
parison  with  this  ’’  (Scudder,  Letters  of  S. 
Catherine,  p.  264).  Religious  Orders  were  also 
divided  by  this  two-edged  sword,  and  with  this 
division  came  a  further  lessening  of  all  effectual 
control  by  superiors  over  their  subjects.  The  Order 
of  S.  Dominic,  the  history  of  which  must  enter 
necessarily  in  a  biography  of  this  kind,  was  also 
split  into  two  obediences,  with  the  same  inevitable 
result.  “It  has  altogether  run  wild,”  says  S. 
Catherine  in  another  place  {Ibid.,  p.  123).  But 
in  1390,  Bl.  Raymund  of  Capua,  her  “  Father 
and  Son  ”  as  she  called  him,  was  elected  to  the 
headship  of  that  portion  of  it  which  remained 
faithful  in  its  allegiance  to  the  Roman  line  of  Pon¬ 
tiffs.  With  him  came  in  the  quickening  life  of 
reform.  A  few  earnest  friars,  here  and  there,  were 
struggling  to  bring  back  animation  to  the  wasted 
and  stifled  form  of  religion ;  but  their  efforts,  how¬ 
ever  well-directed,  failed  in  concentration.  They 
could  effect  little  except  in  their  immediate  en¬ 
vironment.  But  the  new  Master  General  rallied 
the  forces,  unified  them  and  thus  intensified  their 
power  for  good. 


8 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


Foremost  among  these  Paladins  of  Observance 
was  the  Bl.  Giovanni  Dominici,  a  Florentine,  born 
in  1350,  who  became  a  Dominican  in  1367,  was 
nominated  subsequently  Cardinal  of  S.  Sisto  and 
Archbishop  of  Ragusa,  and  died  in  1419  in  Bo¬ 
hemia,  Legate  for  the  Holy  See.  Commissioned 
in  1391  by  Raymund  of  Capua,  he  went  to  the 
Priory  of  S.  Domenico  in  Venice,  there  to  restore 
religious  discipline.  From  this  dates  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  Dominican  reform.  From  there  Dominici 
passed  to  Citta  di  Castello  in  Umbria,  to  Fabiano 
in  the  March  of  Ancona,  and  to  S.  Domenico  in 
Cortona.  But  his  presence  will  be  noted  in  these 
pages  rather  for  his  work  in  Fiesole. 

Here  he  began  about  1400  a  Church  and  Con¬ 
vent  for  the  friars  of  his  Order  who  desired  to  live 
up  to  the  full,  strict  observance  as  laid  down  in  the 
Dominican  Constitutions.  It  was  the  beginning 
of  the  famous  congregation  of  Lombardy,  which 
for  its  austerity,  its  piety,  its  poverty,  no  less  than 
for  the  splendour  of  its  Churches  and  the  brilliancy 
of  its  members,  sheds  an  extraordinary  lustre  on 
the  Order  of  S.  Dominic.  There  are  names  in  it 
that  dazzled  their  contemporaries  and  from  which 
the  glory  among  the  children  of  men  has  not  yet 
departed,  for  besides  the  Bl.  Giovanni  Dominici, 
one  may  cite,  S.  Antonino,  Fra  Angelico,  Fra 
Bartolomeo,  and  Girolamo  Savonarola. 

From  the  summit  of  the  hill  of  Fiesole  one  looks 
down  upon  the  gay  City  of  Flowers.  It  lies  at  one’s 
feet  an  entrancing  sight,  cut  across  in  its  south¬ 
western  corner  by  the  silver  band  of  the  sacred 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


9 


Arno,  while  out  from  its  centre,  amid  spires  and 
marble  palaces,  “  whispering  from  her  towers  the 
last  enchantments  of  the  middle  ages,”  rises  the 
fairy  dome  of  her  Cathedral,  than  which  Michel 
Angelo  could  conceive  upon  earth  nothing  more 
beautiful.  From  this  high  chosen  hill,  how  often 
must  the  Bl.  Giovanni  have  gazed  upon  the  city  of 
his  birth.  How  many  a  tie  of  memory  linked  up 
its  fortunes  in  the  past  with  the  Order  to  which  lie 
belonged.  How  S.  Maria  Novella  in  its  chaste 
loveliness  seemed  to  call  to  him  across  the  valley, 
while  he  thought  of  its  walls,  frescoed,  under  the 
matchless  guidance  of  Fra  Jacopo  Passavanti,  with 
the  Dominican  ideal  of  Church  and  State.  How 
different  was  that  high-wrought  theory  of  the  dual 
monarchy,  a  Papal  Emperor  and  an  Imperial  Pope 
together  marshalling  the  forces  of  the  world,  from 
the  sad  reality  of  a  cross-purposed  Christendom, 
plague-stricken  and  torn  by  schism.  Who  knows 
whether  or  not,  there  came  to  him  a  glimpse  of 
the  “  vision  splendid  ”?  Perhaps  the  Ancient  of 
Days  drew  back  for  a  moment  the  veil  that 
shrouded  the  future  round  about  and  to  comfort 
and  encourage  his  servant  vouchsafed  an  Apoca¬ 
lypse.  Perhaps  through  the  haze  of  the  future,  he 
saw  our  great  Archbishop  “  the  Father  of  his 
people”;  and  gazed  at  the  gentle  form  of  Fra 
Angelico;  and  heard  the  thunder-tones  of  Savon¬ 
arola,  prophet  and  martyr ;  and  watched  the  perfect 
painting  of  Fra  Bartolomeo,  softened  by  the  depths 
of  human  friendship  that  its  lines  reveal ;  and 
listened  to  the  graceful  eloquence  of  Fra  Benedetto 


10  s.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


da  Foiano,  the  last  heroic  prior  of  S.  Maria  No¬ 
vella.  Who  knows  or  who  can  tell  how  far  he  saw 
in  prophecy  the  things  that  were  to  be  hereafter? 

He  was  to  pass  away,  to  end  his  work  and  be 
gathered  to  the  saints,  but  not  until  he  had  handed 
on  to  another  the  sacred  fire  that  had  been  en¬ 
kindled  in  his  own  heart  and  had  prepared  the  way 
for  another,  greater,  to  come  after  him,  one  of  those 
outstanding  geniuses  who  mould  the  contours  of 
the  world,  “  for  whom  the  eternal  ages  watch  and 
‘wait.” 


CHAPTER  II. 


BIRTH  AND  BOYHOOD. 

This  great  disciple  of  the  Bl.  Giovanni  Dominici, 
who  was  to  excel  beyond  all  the  dreams  of  his 
master,  was  born  in  the  Via  del  Cocomero,  now 
named  the  Via  Ricasoli,  after  a  Florentine  hero  of 
United  Italy.  The  street  stretches  from  the  Duomo 
to  the  Piazza  di  S.  Marco.  This  coincidence  is 
striking;  for  it  may  be  broadly  reckoned  that  the 
life  of  S.  Antonino  is  separated  off  into  two  divi¬ 
sions,  as  a  Dominican  and  as  a  Prelate,  as  Prior  of 
S.  Marco  and  as  Archbishop  in  the  Duomo.  Be¬ 
tween  these  two  centres  was  he  born.  The  old 
house  has  gone  long  since  to  make  room  for  public 
buildings  and  palaces,  and  the  new  street  with  its 
new-fangled  name  seems  to  have  no  sympathy  with 
its  old  associations.  And  yet  it  has — as  indeed 
every  street  and  almost  every  stone  of  Florence 
must  have — its  own  quaint  and  choice  story  to  tell. 
Its  corner,  as  one  turns  into  it  from  the  Via  di 
Pucci,  is  gay  with  a  much  weather-stained  shrine, 
holding  a  Madonna  attributed  to  Filipino  Lippi 
and  another  assigned  to  Buffalmacco.  Certainly  in 
this  street  lived  Buffalmacco,  the  riotous,  jovial 
artist,  whose  humorous  misdemeanours  are  part  of 
the  stock-in-trade  of  every  Florentine  cicerone. 
Gioto  again  graced  it  with  his  presence;  and  to  it 
in  1466  came  old  Donatello  to  die,  in  a  house  given 
him  by  Piero  il  Gottoso,  the  son  and  successor  of 


12 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


Cosimo  dei  Medici.  Here  again  lived  Bonaven- 
tura,  the  husband  of  Bianca  Capello,  over  whose 
pathetic  personality  have  not  theatre-goers  wept 
these  many  centuries?  But  more  important  still  to 
S.  Antonino  was  the  nearness  of  the  little  street  to 
the  Palazzo  dei  Medici,  now  the  Palazzo  Ricardi. 
The  original  palace  was  only  built  in  1430  from 
a  design  of  Michelozzo  Michelozzi;  but  on  the 
same  spot  the  earlier  Medici  had  lived  whose  names 
appear  here  and  there  in  the  history  of  Florence, 
always  interfering  on  behalf  of  the  popular  party 
and  quietly  waiting  their  time  till  Cosimo  could 
reap  the  harvest  of  all  their  sowing. 

Curiously  enough  Cosimo  and  S.  Antonino  were 
born  in  the  same  year.  Trouble  has  been  caused 
over  this  date  by  the  Eighteenth  Century  editors  of 
the  Bullarium  Ordinis  Predicatorum  (1732  Rome 
vol.  4,  p.  424),  who  mention  the  birth  of  S.  An¬ 
tonino  as  taking  place  on  March  1st,  1390.  But 
the  Life  of  the  Saint,  written  from  the  process  of 
Canonization,  says  that  he  was  born  in  the  Ponti¬ 
ficate  of  Urban  VI.  This  contradiction  (for  Boni¬ 
face  IX.  was  elected  on  November  22nd,  1389)  has 
been  a  great  joy  to  pedants  who  have  fought  over 
it  gaily  in  tomes,  now  fortunately  too  heavy  to  be 
lifted  and  too  dusty  to  be  read. 

But  it  is  the  genealogy  of  the  Saint,  for  which 
the  pedants  have  had  most  regard ;  and  the  various 
accounts  of  it  are  certainly  confusing.  Still  the 
learned  work  of  Fra  Serafino  Loddk  published  in 
1731,  is  a  final  reply  to  all  cavillers.  This  ad¬ 
venturous  friar  attacks  all  who  confound  the 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


1 3 


parentage  of  S.  Antonino  with  that  of  the  de 
Fritti  or  the  del  Frilla  or  the  Piavano  Arlotto,  and 
most  of  all  those  worst  of  heretics  who  dare  affirm 
that  these  three  families  are  one.  But  we  will  pass 
by,  in  patience,  all  Fra  Serafino’s  array  of  offensive 
artillery  and  learn  simply  what  he  has  discovered. 
The  Saint’s  father  then,  according  to  this  bio¬ 
grapher,  was  Ser  Niccolo  di  Pierozzo,  a  descendant 
of  Forcione,  one  of  the  earliest-known  citizens  of 
Florence.  Niccolo  is  said  to  have  been  well  born, 
though  Florence  did  not  trouble  much  about  that. 
It  is  even  said  that  he  was  related  to  the  Strozzi  and 
the  Medici,  for  in  the  account  of  a  marriage  that 
took  place  on  November  25th,  1385,  we  find  him 
present  along  with  representatives  of  these  families, 
and  we  are  told  that  custom  prescribed  that  only 
relations  should  be  invited  to  weddings.  In  any 
case  Niccolo  was  well  known  in  the  city.  He  be¬ 
longed  to  the  Guild  of  Advocates,  for  his  profession 
was  that  of  a  Notary  Public.  Four  times  over  was 
he  “  Proconsulo  ”  of  his  Art,  and  twice  “  Prior.” 
In  this  last  capacity  he  helped  the  Gonfalonier 
in  governing  the  Republic.  Three  times  he  was 
married,  first  to  Lotta  di  Giovanni  in  1368,  then 
to  Tommasa  di  Cenni  di  Nucci  in  1383,  lastly  to 
Sandra  di  Duccio  in  1395.  ^  was  second  wife 

who  was  the  mother  of  S.  Antonino.  She  brought 
her  husband  a  dowry  of  200  scudi  and  a  house  to 
the  south-west  of  the  Duomo,  since  incorporated; 
in  the  Canons-Close.  In  1400  we  find  S.  Antonino 
entering  into  possession  of  this  house,  but  when  he 
became  a  Dominican,  his  father  sold  it  and  went 


14 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


back  to  live  in  the  old  home  in  the  Via  di  Cocomero 
which  he  bequeathed  to  the  use  of  his  third  wife. 
The  only  other  children  mentioned  in  the  will  be¬ 
sides  S.  Antonino,  to  whom  one-third  of  the  pro¬ 
perty  was  left,  were  Fernando,  on  whom  a  third  also 
devolved,  and  a  daughter  Niccolosa,  a  sister  of  our 
Saint,  married  to  Domenico  di'  M.  Giovanni  di 
Cinoccio  dell’  Ossa  who  was  to  receive  the  house 
when  her  step-mother  should  die  {Letter e  d.  S. 
Antonino ,  p.  189).  The  names  of  other  brothers 
and  sisters  are  quoted  by  various  authors ;  but  to 
none  other  at  his  death  did  Ser  Niccolo  leave  any 
of  his  properties. 

We  know  therefore  a  little  about  the  father  of  S. 
Antonino ;  about  his  mother  just  nothing  at  all. 
The  early  biographers  put  us  off  with  trite  phrases 
about  “  pious  and  honest  parents,”  but  on  the  really 
interesting  points  about  his  early  childhood,  his 
home-life,  his  mother  and  her  ways,  they  give  us  no 
details.  It  may  be  that  with  a  reticence  and  a 
modesty,  the  appreciation  of  which  our  own  times 
have  altogether  blunted,  they  considered  these 
things  too  sacred  for  the  common  report  of  men, 
and  deliberately  drew  the  veil  across  the  sanctuary 
when  the  most  intimate  parts  of  life’s  mystic  rites 
were  being  celebrated. 

One  trait  of  the  little  boy’s  character  can  be 
gleaned  from  his  name.  He  was  christened  Antony 
and  as  such  he  is  called  in  all  official  documents 
and  by  his  more  immediate  biographers.  But  there 
is  abundant  evidence  to  show  that  he  was  known 
as  Antonino  or  Little  Antony.  No  doubt  he  was 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


15 


slightly  built,  a  delicate  lad.  There  are  signs 
enough  of  this  for  he  suffered  all  his  life  from  a 
terrible  hernia  and  was  always  supposed  to  be 
threatened  with  consumption  ( Acta  Sanctorum , 
p.  319).  But  he  was  not  so  ridiculously  small  in 
stature  as  late  writers  usually  describe  him  to  be, 
for  when  his  coffin  was  opened  in  1589,  his  skeleton 
was  measured  and  found  to  be  about  five  feet  and 
a  half.  It  was  not  his  size  or  physique  which  made 
him  “  Antonino,”  but  rather,  one  cannot  help  feel¬ 
ing,  that  the  little  fellow  was  one  of  those  children 
to  whom  instinctively  such  names  of  endearment 
are  given,  a  lovable  boy,  with  an  attractive  face 
( Ser-U berti ,  A.S.  p.  332).  Perhaps,  too,  the  fact 
that  he  lost  a  mother’s  care  before  he  was  six  years 
old  made  the  neighbours  pity  him  and  give  him  that 
title  of  affection,  under  which  we  now  invoke  him. 

In  the  early  accounts  of  his  childhood  we  find 
notices  that  imply  that  he  was  sent  to  school,  but 
his  delicate  health  caused  his  studies  to  be  very 
broken.  He  tells  us :  “I  confess  that  I  have  had 
no  master  in  grammar,  except  when  I  was  a  little 
boy  and  he  was  a  sorry  teacher;  nor  in  any  other 
study  except  in  dialectics  and  that  was  a  very  much 
interrupted  course”  ( Summa  Moralis,  I.,  p.  3). 
How  the  rest  of  his  boyhood  was  spent  we  have 
no  record.  The  Bull  of  Canonization  speaks  of 
his  love  of  prayer  and'  the  strange  fascination  that 
preaching  had  for  him.  His  favourite  haunt  was 
the  splendid  shrine  of  Or  San  Michele  where  his 
daily  prayer  of  an  hour  naturally  attracted  atten¬ 
tion.  This  wonderful  tabernacle,  which  the  superb 


i6 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


genius  of  Orcagna  had  devised,  had  been  finished 
about  forty  years  earlier;  but  the  boy  came  onrno 
artistic  pilgrimage.  At  any  rate  modern  tradition 
points  out  as  the  centre  of  his  veneration  an  old- 
wooden  crucifix,  formerly  attached  to  one  of  the 
pillars,  now  hidden  away  behind  a  curtain  to  the 
right  of  the  shrine. 

Like  all  children  he  was  fond  of  watching  pro¬ 
cessions  ;  and  especially  was  he  attracted  to  those 
of  the  Dominican  Church  of  S.  Maria  Novella. 
A  true  Florentine,  he  was  always  to  be  found  in 
some  church  or  shrine  that  was  famous  as  a  work 
of  art.  Or  San  Michele  represents  in  Florence 
the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance;  S.  Maria  Novella 
the  evening  glow  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Born  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  dying  in  the  Renaissance,  he 
found  in  himself,  as  did  all  Florence,  the  meeting 
of  these  two  epochs.  The  music  both  of  nature  and 
supernature,  of  paganism  and  revealed  faith,  of 
the  beauty  of  the  human  form  and  the  loveliness  of 
the  soul  found  their  echoes  in  his  heart.  He  would 
wonder  at  the  gorgeousness  of  Orcagna’s  work  and 
then  go  back  to  the  chaste  simplicity  of  the  Do¬ 
minican  architecture.  There  he  would  linger  as 
the  processions  went  by,  kneeling  among  the  jost¬ 
ling  crowd,  watching  for  his  father  to  pass  in  his 
robes  of  office  and  choosing  from  among  the 
variously-clothed  religious — as  has  done  perhaps 
every  Catholic  boy — the  Order  to  which,  when  he 
was  grown  up,  he  would  belong. 

Just  as  S.  Antonino  was  reaching  that  most  mys¬ 
terious  age  of  boyhood,  which  lies  between  the  ig- 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


1 7 


norance  of  the  child  and  the  full  knowledge  of 
the  man,  when  the  world  begins  to  perplex  and  to 
thrill,  when  innocence  stands  puzzled  on  the 
threshold  of  hot  life,  there  came  “  over  the  rim  of 
his  horizon  ”  the  figure  of  Giovanni  Dominici,  who 
was  beginning  his  priory  of  strict  observance  on 
the  lower  slopes  of  the  hill  of  Fiesole.  Our  Saint 
calls  him  “  that  splendid  and  wonderful  hero  who 
drew  me  to  him  by  the  brilliant  ideas  that  sparkled 
in  his  sermons  ”  ( Chronicon  iii.,  23,  1 1) ;  and  he 
goes  on  to  describe  the  style  of  his  preaching: 
“  One  Lent  course,  I  remember  seeing  an  immense 
crowd  of  enthusiastic  hearers  in  the  Duomo  listen¬ 
ing  to  him  as  he  explained  the  psalms,  verse  by 
verse,  returning  in  the  evening  to  hear  him  expound 
the  Epistles  of  S.  Paul.  His  style  was  grave  and 
majestic.  His  voice  rang  clear  like  a  trumpet  call, 
never  raised  excessively  nor  lowered  over-much, 
but  extraordinarily  impressive  and  full  of  force. 
Nor  was  it  simply  a  matter  of  intellectual  dis¬ 
courses,  but  of  moving  addresses  that  softened  the 
most  obdurate  of  hearts.  Scarcely  ever  did  he 
quote  the  philosophers  or  poets,  but  it  was  from 
the  written  Word  of  God,  the  book  of  the  Scrip¬ 
tures,  that  he  drew  his  appeals,  which  were  en¬ 
livened  with  the  wonderful  freshness  of  his  illustra¬ 
tions.”  In  this  brief  account  by  S.  Antonino  one 
can  understand  the  influence  that  the  preaching  of 
such  a  master  had  over  the  reserved  boy,  drawing 

him  to  new  ideals.  It  was  the  character  of  the  man 

* 

much  more  than  the  words  he  spoke  that  made  him 
so  magnetic  a  centre  for  the  young  Florentines. 

C 


i8 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


“  There  was  nothing  severe  about  him,”  continues 
the  Saint,  “  nothing  harsh,  and  he  had  a  wonderful 
gift  for  detecting  character.  None  came  to  him 
with  any  sorrow  but  went  away  consoled.  In  in¬ 
tellectual  matters  he  could  explain  the  most  intri¬ 
cate  questions  with  such  astonishing  clearness  and 
could  touch  them  about  with  so  much  of  his  own 
gentleness  and  sweetness,  that  difficulties  vanished 
or  at  least  no  longer  continued  to  distress.  His 
dress  was  always  humble,  his  presence  grave  and 
majestic,  his  stature  tall,  his  person  handsome,  his 
face  dignified  yet  remarkable  for  its  pleasantness. 
He  was  invariably  honest  and  straightforward;  he 
never  intrigued  nor  was  in  any  sense  insincere; 
yet  his  simplicity  never  allowed  him  to  be  out¬ 
witted  by  the  craft  or  cunning  of  others.  Gold  and 
silver  were  never  in  his  possession;  and  even  his 
books  were  only  such  as  he  found  in  the  Priories 
where  he  stayed  ”  ( Ibid .,  iii.,  23,  ii). 

After  the  disturbing  influence  of  the  Plague  and 
the  moral  upheaval  caused  by  the  schism,  Florence, 
always  a  religious  city,  welcomed  so  worthy  a  friar 
who  was  moreover  by  birth  one  of  her  own  citizens. 
His  brilliant  yet  devout  discourses,  his  fine 
manly  character,  his  personal  austerity  and  pleasing 
presence  were  all  such  as  would  appeal  to  the  Tus¬ 
can  temperament.  Not  for  a  long  time  had  any 
one  come  who  so  united  in  himself  what  was  best  in 
the  early  dawning  Renaissance  with  what  was  ven¬ 
erable  and  clothed  with  majesty  in  the  eventide  of 
Medievalism. 

The  boy  Antonino  “  grave,  gentle,  silent  ”  {Cas- 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


19 


tiglione,  p.  318),  left  lonely  by  his  mother’s  death, 
wandering  from  Or  San  Michele  to  S.  Maria  No¬ 
vella,  praying,  joining  in  processions,  studying  by 
himself,  reading  as  long  as  his  delicate  health 
allowed,  appealing  by  his  refined  beauty  to  the 
passers-by,  lovingly  called  a  pet-name  by  all  the 
world,  was  just  the  one  to  be  taken  captive  by  such 
an  ideal,  clothed  in  so  appropriate  a  personality. 

One  hot  day  then  in  mid-summer,  the  little  pil¬ 
grim  walked  out  to  the  temporary  Priory  that 
peered  down  upon  Florence  from  the  flank  of  the 
Tuscan  hills.  k 

Fiesole  had  of  old  founded  Florence;  Florence 
was  now  going  back,  up  the  gentle  slope,  to  its 
mother  Fiesole. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  YOUNG  DOMINICAN. 

This  hot  summer’s  day  in  14041  seemed  to  end 
fruitlessly.  The  boy  had  thought  to  take  the  de¬ 
cisive  step  which  should  place  him  among  the  ranks 
of  God’s  priests,  for  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to 
ask  for  the  habit  of  S.  Dominic  from  the  hands 
of  Fra  Giovanni.  It  was  with  that  design  that  he 
was  leaving  behind  his  home  in  Florence  and 
mounting  the  hill  to  Fiesole. 

We  do  not  know  whether  the  two  had  spoken 
together  before  or  not.  It  seems  unlikely,  for  S. 
Antonino  mentions  only  the  preaching  of  Dominici 
as  having  been  the  attraction.  Now,  however,  they 
met.  Fra  Giovanni  questioned  him  about  his  voca¬ 
tion,  his  motives,  and  his  mental  and  spiritual  fit¬ 
ness  for  the  religious  life.  “  And  Antonino,”  says 
his  earliest  biographer,  “  seemed  to  this  man  a  boy 
of  good  parts  and  of  excellent  disposition,  yet  of 
tender  age  withal  and  delicate  health,  and  so  he 
bade  him  wait  a  few  years  until  he  should  be  better 
able  to  bear  the  austerities  of  a  religious  Order  ” 
( Castiglione ,  p.  319).  After  his  experience  of 
the  laxity  introduced  into  the  cloister  through  ac¬ 
cepting  subjects  for  whom  the  rule  had  to  be  ex¬ 
ceedingly  relaxed,  the  good  Dominican  was  forced 
to  be  more  than  ordinarily  prudent  in  his  choice  of 

1  This  date  seems  rather  more  easy  than  any  other  to 
reconcile  the  conflicting  statements  of  the  biographers.  But 
it  is  impossible  to  be  at  all  positive. 


S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS  21 


novices.  The  Convent  was  as  yet  unbuilt,  there 
were  no  other  postulants,  and.  the  lad  looked 
slightly  made  and  unable  to  undergo  the  full 
routine  of  Dominican  life.  Moreover,  Fra  Gio¬ 
vanni  was  himself  of  an  extremely  robust  constitu¬ 
tion,  preaching,  we  are  told,  sometimes  five  times 
a  day  without  feeling  it  to  be  any  tax  upon  his 
strength  ( Acta  Sanctorum,  Junii  ii.,  399).  So  this 
too  probably  helped  him  to  decide  against  receiving 
Antonino.  But  when  he  gave  the  boy  this  refusal, 
a  wistful  look  in  the  little  face  at  the  rebuff  touched 
the  heart  of  the  friar,  and  more  with  the  idea  of 
comforting  him  than  with  any.  very  definite  inten¬ 
tion,  he  enquired  what  was  his  favourite  study. 
“  Canon  Law,”  replied  the  child.  “  Very  well 
then,”  said  Fra  Giovanni,  “  go  home,  and  when  you 
have  learnt  by  heart  the  whole  Decretal  of  Gratian 
come  to  me  again.” 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  quiet  determination 
and  indomitable  spirit  of  the  lad  that  without  a 
word  he  turned  away,  quite  contented  with  the 
terms,  though  he  must  have  known  that  the  De¬ 
cretal  was  a  bulky  volume.  He  had  however  a 
definite  promise  now,  and,  as  for  his  part  of  the 
agreement,  he  had  too  firm  a  faith  in  the  reality 
of  his  vocation  to  doubt  that  God  who  had  begun 
the  good  work  in  him  would  accomplish  it  in  His 
own  good  time.  So  he  returned  to  his  father’s  house 
in  Florence  and  set  to  work  at  his  formidable  task. 
Page  after  page  of  the  Decretal  was  learnt,  and 
while  the  months  went  by  his  heart  grew  lighter, 
as  he  saw  the  number  of  the  leaves  that  separated 


22 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


him  from  the  end  of  his  labours  gradually  lessen¬ 
ing.  But  this  was  not  his  only  preparation  for  his 
future  life.  Day  by  day  the  peasant  women  who 
came  into  the  Church  of  Or  San  Michele  on  their 
way  to  the  market  place  or  the  numberless  crafts¬ 
men  that  turned  down  towards  the  business  centre 
of  Old  Florence,  would  point  out  to  one  another 
that  grave  young  lad  kneeling  at  the  shrine  who 
seemed  already  so  deeply  penetrated  with  the  spirit 
of  God  and,  like  those  who  were  witnesses  of  the 
childhood  of  S.  John  the  Baptist,  they  would  per¬ 
haps  wonder  in  their  hearts  what  manner  of  man 
this  should  be. 

The  only  anxiety  that  seems  at  all  to  have 
troubled  Antonino  himself  was  the  dread  lest  his 
feeble  health  should  prove  an  obstacle  to  the  ful¬ 
filment  of  his  hopes,  for  the  people  used  to  tell  him 
he  would  never  be  able  to  bear  the  discipline  of 
this  strict  religious  Order,  and  drew  exaggerated 
pictures  of  the  severities  of  the  noviciate.  But 
somehow  the  gentle  boy  grew  quite  convinced, 
though  he  said  little,  that  if  God  called  the 
strength  would  be  given.  So  indeed  it  proved. 
This  delicate  child  lived  to  be  an  old  man  of 
seventy,  though  health  and  strength  were  never 
spared  in  the  exercise  of  his  apostolic  and  pastoral 
labours.  Indeed  his  physical  endurance  became 
afterwards  a  constant  wonder  to  his  people  ( Cas - 
tiglione ,  p.  322). 

The  only  effect  of  these  sinister  prophecies  was 
that  the  boy  grew  more  determined  to  make  these 
months  a  time  of  preparation  for  the  fasts  and 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


23 


mortifications  of  his  future  life.  Nor  was  it  diffi¬ 
cult  to  find  opportunities  at  home  for  this  self- 
discipline.  His  parents,  no  doubt,  knew  of  his 
purpose,  but  his  step-mother  did  not  cease  to  look 
anxiously  after  her  little  son,  fearing  lest  in  his 
desire  for  mortification  he  should  still  further 
weaken  his  broken  health.  But  sometimes  when 
she  would  pile  up  his  plate  with  meat,  Antonino, 
who  wanted  to  accustom  himself  to  the  Dominican 
diet  of  fish,  used  to  wait  till  she  was  busy  with  his 
other  brothers  and  sisters,  and  throw  his  meat  to  the 
cats  under  the  table.  At  least  this  is  the  tale  told 
by  one  of  his  biographers  ( Razzi ,  p.  14),  though 
Antonino  himself,  who  ought  to  have  known  best, 
only  confessed  to  hiding  the  meat  under  his  plate 
(■ Castiglione ,  p.  319).  Perhaps  even  so,  it  got 
to  the  cats  at  last.  But  in  any  case  one  feels  sure 
that  his  innocent  schemes  were  often  enough  dis¬ 
covered  by  one  or  other  of  his  family  circle,  to  his 
great  confusion ;  and  that  the  good  mother  would 
shake  her  head  in  mingled  annoyance  and  admira¬ 
tion  at  the  pertinacity  of  the  quiet  boy. 

A  year  passed  by  with  its  daily  recurring  round 
of  prayer  and  self-discipline,  and  the  constant 
study  of  the  task  imposed  on  him,  till  at  length  the 
time  came  when  Antonino,  after  repeated  trials, 
one  may  be  sure,  felt  certain  that  he  knew  the  De¬ 
cretal  from  end  to  end.  For  the  second  time  he 
made  the  pilgrimage  to  Fiesole.  Joy  was  in  his 
heart  for  he  could  not  doubt  the  promise  made  by 
Fra  Dominici.  Again  then  he  found  himself  in  the 
presence  of  the  Dominican,  explained  his  errand, 


24 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


announced  that  he  had  mastered  by  memory  the 
crabbed  pages  of  the  Decretal,  and  begged  for  the 
habit  as  his  coveted  reward. 

The  holy  prior  must  have  been  glad  to  see  again 
the  happy-looking  child,  older  now  by  a  year,  yet 
still,  we  are  persuaded,  so  frail  and  delicate.  The 
quiet  manner  in  which  the  boy  had  turned  away 
resolutely  to  go  back  and  conquer  his  Canon  Law 
probably  lingered  in  Fra  Giovanni’s  remembrance, 
but  it  could  scarcely  have  prepared  him  for  such  a 
power  of  memory  and  perseverance  as  he  now  found 
revealed  in  this  lad  of  sixteen.  Taking  down  the 
great  volume  of  the  Corpus  Juris ,  he  turned  over 
the  pages  of  the  Decretal,  asking  Antonino  first 
one  distinction  and  then  another  without  finding 
him  at  all  at  fault.  “  A  kind  of  miracle,”  says 
the  redactor  of  the  Process  of  Canonization;  “  not 
without  God’s  special  light  ”  echoes  the  Papal  Bull. 

At  length  the  Bl.  Giovanni  shut  the  volume  and 
told  the  expectant  boy  that  he  would  no  longer 
refuse  him  the  habit.  Then  Antonino  bade  fare¬ 
well  to  the  world;  and,  once  within  the  unfinished 
monastery,  one  stage  in  his  life’s  history  is  over. 
God  has  called  and  he  has  obeyed.  He  has  gone 
out  from  home,  from  his  father’s  house,  and  has 
entered  the  cloister.  For  a  while  he  is  to  be  away 
from  the  busy  crowds  of  Florence,  its  manufacture, 
its  commerce,  undisturbed  by  any  sound  save  the 
mellowed  tolling  of  the  city’s  bells,  yet  knowing 
surely  that  one  day  he  must  go  back,  down  the; 
hill,  step  once  more  among  the  tumult  and  try  to 
guide  it  Godwards. 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


25 


But  his  stay  at  Fiesole  was  of  short  duration, 
for  he  left  almost  at  once  for  Cortona.  Here  he 
passed  his  year  of  noviciate.  While  he  was  away, 
the  Bishop  of  Fiesole,  Jacopo  d’Altoviti,  gave  land 
for  the  building  of  the  Priory,  which  was  begun  in 
March,  1406.  By  the  September  of  the  same  year, 
we  find  record  of  a  community  of  fourteen  Do¬ 
minicans  settled  in  the  Priory  (Langton  Douglas, 
Fra  Angelico ,  1902,  London,  p.  23-24).  Just  at 
this  point  however  the  order  of  the  comings  and 
goings  of  S.  Antonino  is  rather  difficult  to  unravel, 
so  that  it  is  only  with  much  uncertainty  that  his 
progress  can  be  followed.  It  seems  probable,  how¬ 
ever,  that  when  he  returned  from  Cortona,  he  stayed 
with  the  Hermits  of  S.  Jerome  higher  up  on  the 
hill  of  Fiesole.  Then  the  Infirmary  was  completed 
and  in  it  the  community  dwelt  for  some  time.  But 
within  a  few  weeks  the  rest  of  the  building  was 
got  ready,  and  the  whole  conventual  life  was  de¬ 
finitely  established  on  September  29th,  1406.  He 
was  back,  however,  once  more  at  Cortona  during 
the  ensuing  year,  where  he  was  joined  by  two  new 
novices,  brothers,  who  have  made  names  for  them¬ 
selves  in  the  history  of  art,  Fra  Benedetto  di  Vic- 
chio  and  Fra  Giovanni,  the  latter  of  whom  all  the 
world  now  knows  as  Fra  Angelico. 

In  1408,  the  Convent,  dedicated  in  honour  of  S. 
Dominic,  was  finished  at  Fiesole,  so  back  again  the 
novices  came  to  their  first  home.  There  is  a  fra¬ 
grance  that  always  attaches  to  the  spring-time  of 
things,  when  life  begins  fresh,  radiant,  and  full  of 
hope  and  promise.  The  early  days,  the  first  re- 


26 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


cords,  the  primitive  sources  of  things,  the  tu¬ 
multuous  origin  of  dynasties  are  the  periods  round 
which  gather  legends  and  myths.  Even  the  places 
where  rise  the  great  and  famous  rivers  have  been 
consecrated  by  pious  tradition  and  deemed  sacred 
by  the  custom  of  the  race.  So  too  has  God  dealt 
with  His  own  people.  The  early  stories  of  Church 
History,  the  rise  of  Religious  Orders,  the  first  con¬ 
versions  of  great  peoples  are  exceedingly  hallowed. 
And  so  was  it  with  the  Convent  of  Fiesole.  At  this 
date  the  novice-master  was  Fra  Lorenzo  di  Rip- 
pafratta  (beatified  by  Pius  IX.  in  1851);  while 
among  the  novices  were  S.  Antonino,  Fra  Pietro 
Capucci  and  Fra  Constanzo  di  Fabiano  (both  beati¬ 
fied  by  Pius  VII.  in  ,1811),  and  Fra  Angelico 
whom  all  the  world  has  put  among  the  Saints.1 

But  public  events  soon  broke  up  the  little  band. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Great  Schism  of 
the  West  was  still  raging.  For  a  long  time 
Florence  had  clung  to  the  Roman  line  of  Pontiffs  ; 
but  when  Innocent  VII.  died  on  Nov.  6th,  1406, 
the  Republic  sent  the  Bl.  Giovanni  to  Rome  to  pro¬ 
test  against  the  election  of  a  new  Pope.  It  seemed 
to  the  Magistracy  that  now  that  the  Roman  claimant 
was  dead  the  easiest  way  to  end  the  Schism  was  to 
summon  a  General  Council  of  the  Church,  at  it  to 
gather  together  the  adherents  of  both  allegiances, 
and  then  proceed  to  the  election  of  an  undoubted 
Pope.  But  the  Cardinals  of  the  Roman  obedience 

1  W.  H.  Lecky,  in  his  Rationalism  in  Europe  (I.,  p.  26), 
speaks  of  the  “  angelic  friar  of  Fiesole  ”  as  a  “  saint  who  may 
be  compared  with  any  in  the  hagiology.” 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


27 


saw  that  if  this  were  done  the  power  would  be 
taken  out  of  their  own  hands.  By  themselves  they 
could,  of  course,  choose  whom  they  would;  else¬ 
where  their  influence  would  be  lost  amid  the  com¬ 
bined  votes  of  all  the  Cardinals  created  by  the 
rival  Pontiffs.  Hence  by  the  end  of  the  month 
they  chose  as  their  candidate  Angelo  Corrario,  who 
took  the  name  of  Gregory  XII.  Some  efforts  were 
made  by  Gregory  and  the  Anti-Pope,  Benedict 
XIII.  to  come  to  terms  at  Savona;  but  each  was  too 
much  afraid  of  appearing  to  recognize  the  other, 
and  in  the  end  they  never  met.  By  this  time  a 
general  disgust  was  felt  all  over  Europe  at  the 
protracted  length  of  the  Schism ;  and  the  scheme 
was  mooted  for  summoning  a  General  Council,  as 
Florence  had  proposed,  which  should  represent  the 
two  obediences,  should  depose  the  rival  Popes,  and 
proceed  to  the  election  of  a  third.  The  result  was 
the  Council  of  Pisa,  held  under  Florentine  pro¬ 
tection,  but  acknowledged  and  favoured  by  France 
and  England.  The  Council  opened  on  25th  March, 
1409.  Both  Gregory  and  Benedict  banned  its  pro¬ 
ceedings;  but  they  were  deposed  by  their  recalci¬ 
trant  Cardinals,  and  their  place  taken  by  Pietro 
Filargo  O.S.F.,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  under  the 
title  of  Alexander  V.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this 
expedient  disturbed  still  further  the  peace  of  Chris¬ 
tendom,  for  there  was  now  a  third  claimant  to 
the  unique  See  of  Peter. 

Florence,  of  course,  accepted  the  new  Pope.  He 
indeed  owed  his  position  to  her  initiative  and  sup¬ 
port.  But  the  little  Priory  of  Fiesole,  under  the 


28 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


leadership  of  Giovanni  Dominici,  clung  to  the 
Roman  obedience ;  so  the  whole  community,  owing 
to  the  persecution  it  suffered  from  the  Magistracy, 
had  to  make  off  to  some  place  of  safety  as  best  it 
could,  and  its  property  returned  to  the  Bishop  of 
Fiesole.  As  far  as  can  be  gathered,  S.  Antonino 
went  with  the  others  to  Foligno  and  thence,  on 
account  of  a  plague  in  that  city,  again  to  Cortona 
in  1413.  Here  he  was  elected  Prior  in  1417;  and 
then  successively  within  the  next  few  years  to  the 
same  position  at  Naples,  Gaeta,  Siena.  But  it  is 
almost  impossible  at  present  to  date  precisely  each 
term  of  office.  In  1424,  he  made  a  canonical 
visitation  of  the  Dominican  Priory  at  Naples,  and 
in  1430  he  was  Prior  of  S.  Maria  sopra  Minerva 
in  Rome,  where  he  was  present  at  the  translation 
of  the  relics  of  S.  Catherine  of  Siena.  At  the 
same  time  he  served  as  an  Auditor  of  the  Rota  in 
the  Pontifical  Court  (where  his  favourite  study  of 
Canon  Law  stood  him  in  good  stead).  In  this 
capacity  he  is  said  to  have  reformed  the  salaries  of 
the  Notaries  Apostolic  ( Summa  M oralis  iii.  6,  3, 
3,  p.  272;  Card.  Lucca  Opera  xv.,  pars,  ii.,  d.  32 
de  Rota,  n.  iii.).  But  the  whole  chronology  of 
his  life  at  this  period  and  for  the  next  few  years  is, 
as  we  have  said,  exceedingly  perplexing.  The  only 
other  office  held  by  him  that  we  shall  mention 
here  is  that  of  Vicar-General  of  the  Reformed  Con¬ 
gregation  of  Strict  Observance — a  group  of  Priories 
linked  up  with  the  Convent  of  Fiesole.  His  term 
of  office  ended  in  1442;  but  he  was  re-elected 
in  1445. 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


29 


These  are  the  few,  isolated  facts,  which  have 
fallen  through  the  sieve  of  history.  How  he  ruled 
his  Priories,  the  innovations  he  introduced,  the 
buildings  he  erected,  the  reforms  he  effected — all 
these  things  have  been  left  unrecorded  and  are 
forgotten,  or  at  least  for  the  present  are  lost  to  us. 
An  anecdote  might  perhaps  have  given,  as  by  a 
flash,  some  light  on  his  character  at  this  period. 
But,  as  it  is,  the  vague  and  colourless  remarks  of 
his  pious  biographers  could  be  applied  to  any  Saint 
of  any  century  in  any  Church.  They  are  bound  to 
be  so  true  that  we  cannot  trust  them.  They  apply 
no  doubt  to  S.  Antonino,  but  only  in  so  far  as 
he  is  like  any  other  God-fearing  man,  not  (and 
surely  this  is  the  proper  work  of  the  biographer) 
where  he  differs  from  them. 

And  yet  perhaps  it  is  as  well,  for  his  entrance 
now  upon  the  scene  is  made  the  more  dramatic 
after  the  long  silence  and  the  hidden  life.  The 
years  have  borne  their  fruit.  He  suddenly  comes 
before  our  notice  with  a  new  greatness,  a  trans¬ 
formed  personality.  No  longer  the  delicate,  af¬ 
fectionate  boy  whose  attractive  beauty  and  charm 
of  manner  made  him  lovable  to  his  fellows,  he 
appears  now  as  a  man  amid  men,  dealing  in 
Florence  with  her  terrible  woes,  in  intimate  inter¬ 
course  with  her  hard  but  magnificent  ruler,  a  friend 
of  Popes  and  Emperors  and  Eastern  Patriarchs, 
a  theologian  among  the  Church’s  official  delegates, 
yet  living  a  life  of  simple  austerity  and  knit  in 
bonds  of  love  with  Fra  Angelico,  gentlest  of 
Dominicans. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


AT  S.  MARCO. 

The  Council  of  Pisa,  it  will  be  remembered, 
affected  the  Schism  rather  for  evil  than  for  good. 
It  only  succeeded  in  adding  one  more  claimant  to 
the  Throne  of  the  Vicar  of  Christ.  But  the  idea 
of  a  General  Council  still  appealed  to  a  great  num¬ 
ber  of  influential  men  who  considered  that  it  had 
not  had  a  fair  chance  of  producing  its  proper 
effect.  Especially  did  this  view  find  a  passionate 
exponent  in  the  person  of  the  Emperor  Sigismund, 
whose  bustling  activity  (as  has  not  seldom  hap¬ 
pened  in  the  Teutonic  line  of  Caesars)  was  much 
attracted  by  the  old  ideal  of  the  European  hege¬ 
mony  invested  in  the  Imperial  dignity.  He  saw 
here  a  chance  for  setting  forth  dramatically  his 
leadership  of  Christendom ;  and  it  must  be  frankly 
admitted  that  whatever  success  the  subsequent 
Council  obtained  was  due  in  large  measure  to  his 
initiative  and  support. 

The  Council  met  at  Constance  on  November  ist, 
1414.  Its  earlier  sessions  consisted  principally  of 
doctrinal  discussions  concerning  the  orthodoxy  of 
the  Bohemian  school  of  teachers,  ending  in  the 
condemnation  and  death  of  Huss.  Then  after  al¬ 
most  a  year  had  passed  without  very  much  being 
effected,  Sigismund  in  his  quixotic  way  set  out  on  a 
tour  through  Europe  to  pacify  warring  kings  and 
gain  their  adherence  to  the  Assembly.  As  often 


S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS  31 

happened  in  these  chivalrous  days,  his  romantic 
quest,  though  it  failed  in  its  immediate  purpose, 
succeeded  in  its  more  ambitious  aims.  He  se¬ 
cured  for  the  Council  the  support  of  public  opinion. 
The  Roman  Pope  sent  Giovanni  Dominici,  now  a 
Cardinal,  and  the  Condittore  Prince,  Carlo  Mala- 
testa  (an  oddly  assorted,  yet  really  representative 
pair)  as  his  Legates,  who,  in  his  name,  renounced 
all  his  dignities  and  declared  his  willing  acceptance 
of  whomsover  the  Council  should  elect.  John 
XXIII.  had  already  been  summarily  deposed,  and 
Benedict  XII.,  whose  pretensions  were  a  legacy 
of  Pisa,  lived  in  his  Spanish  Castle,  undaunted 
but  impotent:  On  November  1  ith,  1417,  Cardinal 
Oddo  Colonna  was  chosen  Pope  and  at  once  as¬ 
sumed  full  power  under  the  title  of  Martin  V. 

This  election  was  indeed  justified  by  its  results. 
After  this  protracted  Schism  of  forty  years,  the 
union  of  the  Church  was  immediately  effected. 
One  of  its  lesser  consequences  (for  Florence  ac¬ 
cepted  the  new  Pontiff  who  took  up  his  residence 

« 

in  her  midst)  was  the  return  of  the  Dominicans 
toFiesole.  They  came  back  in  14 1 8.  The  Bishop 
once  more  made  over  to  them  the  Priory  of  San 
Domenico,  on  condition  of  receiving  from  them  in 
exchange  a  sacred  vestment  said  to  be  worth  200 
ducats.  This  was  paid  for  out  of  moneys  left  to 
S.  Antonino  by  his  father,  who  had  just  died. 
Another  trace  of  the  re-occupation  of  the  Fiesole 
Convent  is  the  handiwork  of  Fra  Angelico,  who 
began  at  once  to  display  his  talents  in  the  decora¬ 
tion  of  Church  and  Priory.  During  these  years  of 


32 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


labour  at  Fiesole  (1418-1435)  the  artist-friar  was 
finding  his  way  out  from  the  conventions  of  the 
early  schools  into  the  freedom  and  “  naturalness  ” 
of  the  modern  critics.  His  monastic  life  cut  him 
off  from  the  delights  of  home  and  the  warm  af¬ 
fection  of  a  family,  but  the  loving  nature  that 
God  had  given  him  found  its  vent  in  portraying, 
almost  for  the  first  time  in  Christian  art,  the 
Motherhood  of  Mary  and  the  Childhood  of  her 
Son,  for  his  Madonnas  have  the  true  movements 
of  nature  and  his  Christ  has  all  the  emotions  of  an 
affectionate  boy.  The  beauties  of  Earth  too  ap¬ 
pealed  to  him,  as  they  had  seldom  before  to  other 
painters,  with  a  full  and  unaffected  delight;  and 
his  visions  of  Heaven  are  so  wonderfully  ideal, 
because  they  are  transcribed  from  a  faithful  ren¬ 
dering  of  Earth,  “  the  manuscript  of  God  ” : 

Ordina  quest’  amore, 

O  tu  che  m’ami. 

Florence  at  this  date  touched  the  full  height 
of  all  her  splendour,  in  the  content  of  her  citizens 
and  the  grandeur  of  her  achievements.  Under  the 
Medici,  it  is  true,  her  influence  was  greater  in  the 
political  scale  of  Europe;  even  her  artistic  value 
may  have  been  intensified  through  the  brilliant 
band  of  painters,  sculptors,  and  architects,  to  whom 
the  discerning  patronage  of  Cosimo  and  his  house 
gave  such  great  opportunities.  Yet  measured 
rather  by  the  happiness  of  the  people  and  the  per¬ 
sonal  worth  and  variety  of  her  men  of  art  and 
letters,  the  Government  at  this  period,  says  Guic- 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


33 


ciardini,  was  the  wisest,  most  glorious,  and  hap¬ 
piest  that  ever  the  city  had  seen.  And  Vespasiano 
Bisticci,  another  contemporary  and  a  devout  pane¬ 
gyrist  of  the  Medici,  bore  the  same  witness:  “  In 
that  time,  from  1422  to  1433,  the  City  of  Florence 
was  in  a  most  blissful  state,  abounding  with  ex¬ 
cellent  men  in  every  faculty,  and  it  was  full  of 
admirable  citizens.” 

Yet  just  then  occurred  one  of  those  violent 
changes  in  Florentine  government  which  were  so 
common  in  her  history.  The  carefully  matured, 
but  unobtrusive  power  of  the  Medici,  which  up  to 
this  time  had  appeared  only  fitfully,  seems  to  have 
scared  the  Albizzi,  who  then  held  the  chief  rule 
of  the  city.  By  a  sudden  appeal  to  the  people, 
a  provisional  government  was  appointed  which 
banished  Cosimo  and  his  friends  to  various  cities 
of  Europe.  But  the  recoil  was  equally  violent. 
.Within  a  year  Cosimo  returned  (“  by  divine  pro¬ 
vidence  ”  says  S.  Antonino  x),  this  time  to  a  prac¬ 
tically  unlimited  power,  “  on  the  shoulders  of  all 
Italy.”  Officially  he  was  only  one  of  the  city 
Magistrates,  he  bore  no  exceptional  command  and 
assumed  no  newly  devised  office.  He  continued 
the  same  forms  of  government — or  nearly  so,  simply 
narrowing  the  number  of  officials,  and  carefully 
depriving  them  of  all  power.  Above  all  he  at¬ 
tempted  to  rule  Florence  by  dazzling  her  with  such 
splendour  (not  personal,  but  civic)  as  his  vast 
wealth  made  possible.  Cynically  enough,  he  ad¬ 
mitted  his  use  of  the  arts  to  be  but  an  instrument 

1  Chronicon  Historic,  Tit.  XXII.,  3,  fol.  CXXX.  IX.  b. 

D 


34 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


of  government:  “  I  know  the  humours  of  this  city, 
fifty  years  will  not  pass  before  we  are  driven  out; 
but  the  buildings  will  remain.”  He  spoke  truly. 
Five  hundred  years  have  passed  away  and  still  the 
whole  architecture  of  Florence  rings  with  the  name 
of  the  Medici. 

To  one  of  these  buildings  we  must  now  turn. 

The  fame  of  the  Dominicans  of  Fiesole  insti¬ 
gated  the  parishioners  of  S.  George-beyond-the 
Arno  to  request  them  on  June  9th,  1435,  to  make  a 
foundation  in  their  parish.  The  Prior  of  S.  Do¬ 
menico  accepted  the  offer,  and  sent  some  of  his 
community  to  establish  the  new  colony.  But  the 
site  proved  ill-suited  for  their  work,  as  it  was  too 
far  out  from  the  centre  of  the  city.  In  conse¬ 
quence  the  Priors  of  the  Arts  (the  official  rulers 
of  Florence)  petitioned  the  Pope  to  transfer  the 
Dominicans  to  the  Church  and  Monastery  of  S. 
Marco,  which  till  then  had  belonged  to  the  Silves- 
trians.  Eugenius  IV.  immediately  agreed  to  the 
proposal,  issuing  a  Bull  to  order  the  unfortunate 
Silvestrian  monks  to  exchange  S.  Marco  for  S. 
Georgio.  Here  Cosimo  dei  Medici  saw  a  golden 
opportunity  for  once  more  entrenching  his  position 
among  the  people.  The  Order  was  reformed,  and 
therefore  was  popular  with  the  Pontifical  Court; 
it  was  no  less  popular  in  Florence  as  the  petition  of 
the  Priors  bore  witness.  He  therefore  offered  to 
rebuild  the  whole  block,  Church  and  monastery  as 
well.  His  offer  was  gladly  accepted  by  the  Vicar- 
General  of  the  Lombard  Congregation  who  was 
no  other  than  S.  Antonino,  then  living  at  Fiesole. 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


3S 


The  plans  for  the  new  Priory  were  put  up  for  com¬ 
petition,  and  the  design  of  Michelozzo  was  pre¬ 
ferred  ( Chronicon  Histories,  Tit.  XXII.,  fol.  CXL. 
X.  5). 

Thus  began  the  building  of  S.  Marco.  In  1439 
the  great  library  was  finished  and  enriched  by  the 
four  hundred  precious  manuscripts  which  Niccolo 
Niccoli  had  bequeathed  to  the  city.  Cosimo,  too, 
frequently  gave  huge  sums  of  money  to  make  the 
collection  of  books  still  more  valuable — in  1444 
allowing  400  gold  florins  to  purchase  books  on 
Canon  Law,  and  in  1445  adding  250  more  for 
buying  theological  writings.  It  was,  too,  in  1439 
that  S.  Antonino  was  made  first  Prior  of  S.  Marco, 
an  office  that  he  held  conjointly  with  the  Priorship 
of  Fiesole  till  1445  when  a  separation  between 
the  two  was  made ;  at  the  same  time  he  appears  to 
have  continued  in  his  post  as  Vicar  over  all  the 
Priories  that  were  grouped  together  under  the  title 
of  the  Lombard  Congregation.  He  it  was,  then, 
who  welcomed  Eugenius  IV.  in  1443  when  he  came 
to  the  consecration  of  the  Church  on  Epiphany  Day, 
and  the  friendly  Pontiff  dined,  supped,  and  slept 
at  S.  Marco,  returning  next  morning  to  the  other 
Dominican  Priory  in  Florence,  S.  Maria  Novella. 

Another  triumph  for  Florence  and  one  in  which 
S.  Antonino  again  took  part,  had  occurred  shortly 
before.  In  1439,  the  Council  of  Ferrara,  con¬ 
voked  in  order  to  deliberate  on  the  Union  of  East 
and  West,  was  on  account  of  the  plague  transferred 
to  Florence.  The  citizens  found  in  their  midst 
their  own  spiritual  chief,  Pope  Eugenius,  and  from 


36 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


the  East  the  Emperor  whose  fame  and  supposed 
magnificence  were  legends  bequeathed  from  the 
Crusading  times.  The  Patriarch,  too,  of  Constan¬ 
tinople,  who  claimed  an  equal  jurisdiction  with 
the  Pontiffs  of  the  West,  had  journeyed  in  his  ven¬ 
erable  age  to  assist  at  the  re-union  of  the  Churches. 
There  were  gathered  together  the  most  renowned 
prelates  of  Europe  and  Asia,  their  most  consum¬ 
mate  theologians,  and  the  representatives  of  the 
Christian  princes.  Among  the  rest  figures  the  name 
of  S.  Antonino.  What  his  precise  work  was  we  do 
not  know.  We  learn  only  that  he  was  present,  that 
he  spoke,  and  that  his  learning  and  acumen  took 
the  fancy  of  the  Pope  (Creighton:  History  of  the 
Popes ,  1882,  London  ii.  504). 

Although  the  most  important  result  of  the  first 
meeting  in  a  European  city  of  Pope  and  Patriarch 
and  Emperor  was  naturally  enough  the  healing  of 
the  Schism  that  for  so  many  centuries  had  rent 
Christendom  apart,  other  effects  were  produced  on 
the  Florentines.  They  laughed  at  the  fantastic 
hats  and  loose,  Eastern  robes  and  painted  eye¬ 
brows  of  these  unwonted  Bishops  from  the  Greek 
Empire ;  they  were  disappointed  at  the  personal 
ignorance  which  these  prelates  showed  of  Homer 
and  Hesiod,  Plato  and  Aristotle ;  still  on  the  whole 
they  were  overcome  with  respect  for  these  strangers 
for  whom  the  antique  speech  of  the  gods  was  a 
living  language.  Even  in  the  pages  of  S.  An- 
tonino’s  works,  the  same  process  is  noticeable.  At 
first  overpowered  by  the  personal  influence  of 
Giovanni  Dominici  (cf.  Locula  Noctis,  edited  by 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


37 


R.  Coulon,  O.P.,  1908,  Paris),  we  find  him  de¬ 
crying  the  study  of  the  classics  or  at  least  depre¬ 
ciating  their  value ;  but  in  his  later  writings  he 
treats  them  much  more  kindly.  That  the  pagaa 
authors  were  scandalous  in  their  lives,  he  does  not 
to  the  last  deny :  “  but  this  should  not  blind  us  to 
the  truth  of  much  that  they  have  written,  for  truth 
wheresoever  found  is  ever  the  truth  of  God.”  1 


1  Summa  Moralis ,  I.  i.  3,  4,  p.  37. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  GOOD  ARCHBISHOP. 

ELORENCE  had  thus  for  long  been  full  of 
pageantry.  It  had  housed  Martin  V.  when  he  came 
to  his  pontificate  (C hr onicon  Historice ,  Tit.  XXII., 
ii.,  fol.  CXXX.,  b.),  and  had  found  himself  without 
temporal  support,  until  the  ribald  rhymes  of  the 
children  about  him  made  his  stay  there  no  longer 
possible.  It  had  in  its  noble  pity  petitioned  for 
the  Anti-Pope  John  XXIII.  to  be  made  a  Cardinal, 
and,  when  within  a  year  of  his  doing  reverence 
to  Pope  Martin,  he  passed  out  of  life,  it  buried  him 
with  full  splendour  in  the  famous  Baptistry  of  S. 
John.  Thither  too  had  Eugenius  come  for  recog¬ 
nition.  He  had  pacified  the  distracted  city,  de¬ 
creed  exile  to  the  Albizzi,  and  brought  back  the 
Medici  to  their  princedom.  He  had  also  with 
astonishing  pomp  himself  consecrated  and  set  in 
order  the  Cathedral,  had  held  within  its  walls  the 
most  splendid  bravery  of  the  Latin  obedience,  and 
the  still  more  striking  grandeur  ( Creighton  i., 
p.  190)  of  the  old  decaying  Eastern  Caesars  and 
their  Patriarchs,  and  had  witnessed,  along  with  a 
noble  throng  of  Cardinals  and  Bishops  the  con¬ 
secration  of  that  monument  of  Medicean  glory, 
the  Priory  of  S.  Marco.  At  this  last  ceremony 
he  had  been  extraordinarily  impressed  with  the 
frescoes  of  Fra  Angelico.  The  strength  and  ori¬ 
ginality  of  their  design  and  their  artistic  fearless- 


S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS  39 


ness  were  especially  pleasing  to  him  for  they  were 
informed  with  a  distinctive  Christian  Faith.  Con¬ 
sequently  on  his  return  to  Rome  in  1444,  he  took 
the  artist-friar  with  him. 

Within  a  year  of  their  arrival  occurred  the  death 
of  Zarabella,  Archbishop  of  Florence.  The  ques¬ 
tion  at  once  came  up  of  filling  this  important  See ; 
and  it  may  be  presumed  that  it  was  of  especial  in¬ 
terest  to  Eugenius  who  knew  so  well  Florence  and 
all  its  extensive  needs.  For  nine  months  ( Castig - 
Hone,  p.  319)  the  Pontiff  hesitated.  Then  on  the 
advice  of  certain  religious  he  was  reminded  of  S. 
Antonino  whose  goodness  and  character  he  had 
long  known.  At  once  the  Pope  agreed  and  mani¬ 
fested  his  decision  by  appointing  the  Prior  of  S. 
Marco  to  the  Archbishopric.  But  fhe  story,  as 
told  by  Vasari,  though  certainly  inaccurate  in  de¬ 
tails  and  perhaps  even  inaccurate  in  its  main  idea,  is 
too  well-known  to  be  easily  omitted  here :  “  And 
because  Fra  Giovanni  (Fra  Angelico)  seemed  to 
the  Pope,  as  he  was  indeed,  a  man  of  most  holy 
life,  gentle  and  modest,  when  the  Archbishopric  of 
Florence  fell  vacant,  he  adjudged  him  worthy  of 
the  rank;  but  the  said  friar  hearing  of  it  prayed 
His  Holiness  to  give  it  to  another,  because  he  did 
not  feel  himself  to  be  apt  at  governing  men,  and 
said  that  his  Order  had  anofher  friar,  loving  to  the 
poor,  learned,  skilled  in  government  and  God-fear¬ 
ing  whom  the  dignity  would  much  better  become 
than  it  would  him.  The  Pope,  hearing  this  and 
perceiving  that  what  he  said  was  true,  granted  him 
the  favour,  and  so  Fra  Antonino  of  the  Order  of 


40 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


Preaching  Friars  was  made  Archbishop  of  Flor¬ 
ence,  a  man  of  such  holiness  that  he  was  canonised 
by  Adrian  VI.  in  our  own  day.”  1 

At  any  rate  by  whatever  means  it  had  been 
brought  about  S.  Antonino  was  appointed  to  the 
See  by  the  Pope.  The  Saint  was  on  his  way  to 
make  a  visitation  of  the  Priories  of  the  Neapolitan 
kingdom  when  the  news  reached  him  of  the  Pope’s 
appointment.  His  first  thought  was  to  avoid  it  by 
crossing  over  into  Sardinia,  but,  while  waiting  in 
some  town  on  the  western  sea-board  among 
strangers  who  were  not  at  all  likely  to  recognise 
him,  a  nephew  of  his,  Pietro  by  name,  followed  him 
to  offer  the  congratulations  of  the  family.  The 
friar  begged  to  be  left  alone,  but  the  nephew, 
with  all  the  determination  of  youth,  declared  that 
he  would  not  leave  his  uncle’s  side.  At  last  over¬ 
come  by  the  persistence  of  the  fellow,  Antonino 
went  on  to  Siena,  with  his  mind  still  made  up  to 
refuse  the  dignity.  But  the  Pope  hearing  of  his 
endeavour  to  escape,  and  thereby  still  more  con¬ 
vinced  that  he  was  the  proper  man  for  the  post, 
despatched  messengers  to  compel  him  to  accept  the 
Archbishopric,  and  to  repair  immediately  to 
Fiesole. 

Even  when  there,  S.  Antonino  endeavoured  to  in¬ 
terest  Cosimo  dei  Medici  in  his  efforts  at  release ; 
but  Cosimo,  knowing  the  popularity  of  the  appoint- 

1  Vasari,  Stories  of  Italian  Artists  (trans.  by  E.  L.  Seeley. 
1906,  London  83);  but  Lapini  ( Acta  Sanctorum,  Maii,  Tom. 
VII.  545)  in  1569  denied  completely  that  the  See  had  first 
been  offered  to  Fra  Angelico. 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


4i 


ment,  was  the  more  anxious  to  give  the  impression 
that  he  had  had,  himself,  a  hand  in  the  affair; 
so  he  wrote  off  to  Rome  desiring  the  Pope  to  hold 
to  his  decision  ( Acta  Sanctorum ,  p.  321,  n.  i.). 
When  the  news  spread  about  Florence,  the  people 
were  wild  with  joy.  He  was  known  already  to  be 
a  strong-minded  fearless  priest — in  Fra  Angelico’s 
reputed  words  “  loving  to  the  poor  and  skilled  in 
government.”  Moreover  the  three  previous  pre¬ 
lates,  who  had  held  the  See  since  Martin  V.  had 
raised  it  to  an  Archbishopric,  had  been  absentees 
and  foreigners,  a  Roman  and  two  Paduans,  whereas 
here  was  a  Florentine,  likely  to  live  in  his  own 
city. 

The  Magistrates  wrote  lively  letters  to  Fiesole 
urging  S.  Antonino  to  fear  nothing  and  to  take 
up  his  burden:  “  You  love  no  doubt,”  say  they,  “  the 
silence,  the  cloister,  and  the  contemplation,  but  are 
we  put  here  to  live  alone?  Is  it  not  rather  true  that 
the  country  to  which  we  belong,  the  friends  to 
whom  we  are  bound  by  love,  the  social  organisation 
in  which  we  find  ourselves,  nay,  the  whole  human 
race,  have  claims  on  us,  and  even  rights  over  us.”  1 
To  a  plea  so  impassioned  and  based  on  grounds 
of  public  utility  and  harder  labours,  the  Saint  could 
not  be  deaf. 

He  summoned  to  Fiesole  the  Abbots,  Prelates, 
and  chief  men  of  the  city,  and  there  in  their 
presence  accepted  the  high  office,  begging  in  ex¬ 
change  their  alms  of  prayer.  His  consecration  took 
place  in  the  Church  of  S.  Domenico  upon  the  hill- 

1  Cf.  his  Letter  e,  pp.  87 — 88  and  Aloro,  pp.  55 — 56. 


42 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


side  (the  home  of  his  noviciate)  by  Lorenzo  Gioco- 
mini,  O.P.,  Archbishop  of  Achaia,  assisted  by  the 
two  suffragans  of  the  Archbishopric,  Benozzo 
Federichi,  Bishop  of  Fiesole,  and  Donato  dei 
Medici,  Bishop  of  Pistoja.  Then  on  March  13th, 
1446,  the  second  Sunday  in  Lent,  he  came  bare¬ 
foot  down  the  hill  in  the  early  morning-light,  which 
made  the  future  scene  of  his  life’s  work  seem  a 
wondrous  thing  of  beauty.  At  the  Church  of  S. 
Gallo  outside  the  walls  he  stayed  to  say  his  Mass, 
seeing  in  the  sacrificial  death  of  the  Good  Shepherd 
the  model  for  his  own  pastorship ;  then  he  entered 
by  the  Gate  of  S.  Gallo  in  the  N.E.  corner  and 
down  the  east  side  of  the  city  till  he  came  to  the 
Church  of  S.  Pietro  Maggiore,  a  little  north  of  Sta. 
Croce.  It  exists  no  longer;  but  in  it  was  performed, 
as  Florentine  custom  dictated,  the  quaint  mystic 
wedding  of  the  Archbishop  to  his  See,  represented 
by  the  Abbess  of  the  neighbouring  Convent  of  the 
Benedictines,  to  whom  he  gave  the  ring.  Then 
turning  northwards  again  through  the  Borge  dei 
Albizzi,  he  came  to  the  Duomo  where  the  Te  Deum 
was  sung  and  S.  Antonino  spoke  to  his  people. 
Then  at  last  he  reached  his  Palace  and  settled  at 
once  to  his  work. 

The  strenuous  and  austere  Saint  found  himself 
thoroughly  uncomfortable  in  his  new  home,  or,  for 
the  word  is  misleading,  not  comfortable  enough. 
He  had  to  strike  hard  at  the  old  ways  before  his 
conscience  gave  him  rest.  Numberless  servants 
and  hangers-on  who  fattened  on  revenues,  not  be¬ 
queathed  for  their  use,  were  immediately  dis- 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


43 


missed.  The  tradition  of  fine-living,  which  a  nine- 
months’  vacancy  had  done  nothing  to  diminish,  was 
rudely  broken  through.  A  friar  by  vow,  energetic 
by  nature  or  rather  by  force  of  habit,  busy  by  office, 
he  could  not  afford  nor  did  he  care  for  the  menu 
of  his  predecessors.  Moreover  he  had  accepted  the 
post  on  the  strength  of  the  Gonfalonier’s  words  that 
his  people  and  the  whole  world  had  claims  upon 
him,  and  he  was  in  eager  haste  to  acknowledge 
these  claims.  He  declared  that  his  money,  his 
time,  his  strength,  and  his  powers  were  henceforth 
at  the  mercy  of  his  flock.  At  the  same  time  he 
entered  on  the  path  of  reform.  He  found  the 
Canons  of  the  Cathedral  lax  in  saying  publicly  the 
Divine  Office,  especially  in  the  recitation  of  Matins 
at  mid-night.  His  efforts  for  long  years  were  un¬ 
availing,  but  in  1456  he  determined  himself  to 
attend  regularly,  although,  in  those  days,  the  Palace 
did  not  abut  on  the  Duomo,  so  that  he  had  to  walk 
down  the  street,  while  the  Canons  could  reach  the 
Choir  without  leaving  cover.  Canon  Castiglione, 
his  personal  friend  and  his  earliest  biographer,  tells 
how  one  snowy  night  in  winter,  when  the  sleet  was 
sweeping  down  the  deserted  streets,  he  and  Mark, 
who  both  acted  as  the  Saint’s  secretaries,  could  not 
bring  themselves  to  venture  out;  but  the  Arch¬ 
bishop,  leaving  them  in  bed,  sallied  forth  alone 
across  the  open  square  to  the  cold  marble  Cathe¬ 
dral,  which  must  itself  have  been  like  the  wind-cave 
of  HLolus.  Another  work  of  his  was  to  organise 
the  studies  of  the  diocese,  for  the  legacy  of  Plague 
and  Schism  had  been  an  ignorant  clergy.  He  com- 


44 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


posed  text-books  on  Church  discipline,  Canon  Law ; 
and  from  the  beginning  of  his  episcopate  started 
to  plan  out  the  grand  scheme  of  his  monumental 
work  on  Moral  Theology. 

Along  with  all  this  diocesan  business,  he  had  on 
him  the  public  burdens  of  his  high  office.  We  find 
him  sent  as  Ambassador  to  congratulate  Popes  or 
to  welcome  Emperors.  In  1452,  when  Frederick 
III.  went  to  Rome  with  Eleonora  to  be  crowned, 
they  passed  through  Florence.  Here  he  was  met 
by  S.  Antonino  and  the  full  magistracy  of  the 
city  ( Chronicon  Histories  III.,  Tit.  XXII.,  fol. 
CXLVI.,  xii.  3)  and  feasted  with  fitting  solemnity. 
But  when  the  Emperor  was  leaving  for  Rome,  the 
citizens  wanted  the  Archbishop  to  accompany  him 
and  represent  them  at  the  ceremony.  This  he  re¬ 
fused.  He  was  old,  he  said;  and  besides  he  had 
a  very  poor  opinion  of  Frederick:  “  There  was  no 
sign  in  him  of  the  Imperial  dignity,  nor  sense, 
nor  wisdom,  since  he  always  had  to  get  others  to 
do  the  talking  for  him.  Instead  he  had  an  ex¬ 
cessive  greed,  always  asking  for  presents  and  joy¬ 
fully  accepting  them.  .  .  .  Eventually  (says  the 
Saint)  he  went  home  and  left  behind  a  very  sorry 
name  for  character.” 

But  at  the  election  of  Popes,  S.  Antonino  was 
always  willing  to  be  of  use  to  the  Republic.  He 
was  sent  with  four  other  ambassadors  to  Pope  Cal- 
lixtus  III.  in  1455.  He  treated  that  Pontiff  to  a 
learned  address,  rather  mystical  in  spirit,  for  it 
mainly  insisted  on  the  supposed  association  between 
the  name  Callixtus  and  the  word  callidus{ hot),  which 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


45 


was  intended  to  symbolise  the  Pope’s  zeal  ( Lettere 
2 1,  pp.  189-191).  However  pedantic  it  may  sound 
to  modern  ears,  the  discourse  was  evidently  quite  in 
keeping  with  the  oratorical  fashion  of  that  day 
and  created  a  sensation  at  the  Roman  Court  ( Acta 
Sanctorum ,  p.  324).  On  his  return  to  Florence 
the  good  Archbishop  had  to  describe  the  whole 
function  for  the  benefit  of  the  citizens.  They  as¬ 
sembled  in  the  Palace  of  the  Signory,  where  he 
“  told  his  battles  o’er  again.”  Here  he  found  his 
wonderful  memory,  that  had  got  him  as  a  child 
into  the  Dominican  Order,  standing  him  in  good 
stead.  The  whole  affair  had  to  be  accurately  and 
carefully  detailed,  and  even  his  address  had  to  be 
repeated  for  these  Florentines,  who  had  no  other 
way  of  getting  hold  of  a  full  report  of  the  pro¬ 
ceedings  ( Chronicon  III.,  Tit.  XXII.,  cap.  xiv. ; 
Acta  S.S.,  p.  324). 

But  the  most  splendid  reception  of  all  was  when 
he  went  with  five  other  Legates  of  the  most  dis¬ 
tinguished  families  of  Florence — Angelo  Accia- 
jolo,  Luigi  Guicciardini,  Pietro  Pazzi,  Guglielmo 
Rucellai,  Pietro  Francisco  dei  Medici — to  salute  the 
newly-elected  Pius  II.  in  1458.  The  Saint  was 
now  an  old  man,  with  only  one  year  of  life  before 
him,  and  his  reputation  for  holiness,  and  still  more, 
one  may  suppose,  for  his  wonderful  powers  of  or¬ 
ganization  and  his  broad-minded  charity  towards 
the  poor,  had  made  his  name  almost  a  synonym  for 
goodness  in  Italian  speech.  Then,  as  now,  he  was 
known  familiarly  as  the  “  Good  Archbishop.”  The 
tumultuous  throng  of  people  to  see  him  enter  Rome 


46 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


and  the  eagerness  with  which  the  Pontifical  Court 
hastened  to  catch  sight  of  him,  gave  much  pleasure 
in  Florence.  Even  in  the  city  of  the  Popes  where 
one  would  think  Bishops  were  a  common  enough 
sight,  it  was  noticed  that  crowds  knelt  for  his  bless¬ 
ing  and  fought  for  the /  privilege  of  kissing  his 
hand  or  ring  ( Acta  S.S.  321).  It  was  a  premature 
canonization,  such  as  Nicholas  V.  had  declared 
when  he  remarked  that  Antonino  living  was  as  good 
a  Saint  as  Bernardino  dead  ( Ibid .,  p.  323). 

Old  however  as  he  was  and  broken  in  health, 
he  made  a  great  speech,  if  the  account  he  gives  of 
it  in  his  Chronicle  (III.,  Tit.  XXII.,  fol.  CLIV.- 
CLVI.,  xvii.)  is  anything  like  the  original.  It 
would  require  his  abnormal  memory  to  recount  the 
whole  life  history  of  Pius  II.,  as  this  does,  or  rather 
the  series  of  his  political  achievements,  for  the 
life-history  of  /Eneas  Silvius  Piccolomini  was  not 
quite  what  S.  Antonino  would  have  been  pleased 
to  relate  in  full  consistory.  He  tells  of  the  enthu¬ 
siasm  that  broke  over  Florence  when  the  cry  was 
raised  at  midnight:  “  We  have  as  Sovereign  Pon¬ 
tiff  the  Lord  /Eneas  Pius.”  Then  he  traces  his 
picture  of  an  ideal  Pope,  holy,  austere,  learned,  the 
patron  of  arts,  letters  and  reform,  and  endeavours 
by  detailing  some  of  the  past  exploits  of  Pius  to 
show  their  grounds  for  expecting  the  new  Pontiff 
to  “  bring  to  maturity  the  blossom  of  their  hopes.” 
Then  the  note  changes,  and  in  tones  of  sonorous 
eloquence  to  which  his  easily-flowing  Latin  so 
aptly  lends  itself,  he  urges  him  to  inaugurate  the 
Crusade,  bids  him  gather  into  one  the  angry  powers 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


47 


of  Europe,  turn  their  swelling  forces  from  each 
other,  and  direct  them  against  the  common  foe 
of  Christendom  that  had  just  taken  and  desecrated 
the  holy  places  of  Constantinople.  This  really  fine 
and  manly  speech,1  which  at  its  close  soars  into 
the  dignified  and  solemn  adjuring  style  which  the 
Fifteenth  Century  writers  so  frequently  adopted, 
made  a  deep  impression  on  this  brilliant,  but  un¬ 
stable  Pope.  Its  peroration  rang  in  his  ears  his 
whole  life  long.  Its  echoes  roused  him  throughout 
his  Pontificate  to  the  same  chivalrous  ideas  and  still 
drove  him  in  the  decrepitude  of  stricken  health  and 
languishing  old  age  to  be  carried,  indomitable,  to 
Ancona,  that  he  might  bless  in  person  the  puny, 
inadequate  fleet  that  all  his  eloquence,  his  state¬ 
craft,  and  his  treasure  could  bring  against  the 
Turk. 

Within  a  year  from  this  impassioned  harangue, 
Fra  Antonino  passed  away  from  life;  and  his  pass¬ 
ing  was  witnessed  in  his  own  city  by  this  same 
Pope  whose  elevation  to  “  the  solicitude  of  all  the 
Churches  ”  he  had  thus  joyously  acclaimed. 

1  Vespasiano  (p.  25),  who  seems  to  have  heard  both 
speeches,  says  that  the  one  to  Callixtus  was  “  worthy  ”  but 
this  “  the  most  worthy  of  all  he  delivered.” 


CHAPTER  VI. 


HIS  SOCIAL  LABOURS. 

In  their  letter  to  S.  Antonino  urging  him  to 
accept  the  Archbishopric,  the  Florentine  Magis¬ 
trates  especially  insisted,  it  will  be  remembered,  on 
the  fact  that  the  new  office  would  mean  ampler 
opportunities  of  work.  They  knew  their  Prior  of 
S.  Marco  when  they  thought  thus  to  tempt  him. 

Just  eight  years  before,  he  had  inaugurated  a 
charity  in  Florence,  which  her  restless  character 
had  rendered  necessary.  On  Cosimo’s  return  to 
power  in  1436,  that  prince  determined  this  time 
to  establish  a  dynasty  in  Florence.  Now  just  as 
other  tyrants  sought  to  crush  their  foes  by  assassina¬ 
tions  and  judicial  murders,  he  with  crafty  foresight 
chose  a  weapon  more  deadly  and  efficient.  The 
ruin  would  be  more  certain,  because  the  root  and 
source  of  his  rivals’  power  would  be  destroyed. 
“  He  employed  taxes,”  says  a  chronicler,  “as  other 
princes  used  daggers,  to  rid  himself  of  his  op¬ 
ponents.”  Just  before  that  date,  the  aristocratic 
party  of  the  Albizzi  had  replaced  the  older,  ar¬ 
bitrary  system  of  taxation  by  an  arrangement  called 
the  “  Catasto,”  by  which  each  citizen  under  penalty 
of  confiscation  reported  his  annual  income  and  was 
taxed  on  it  at  the  rate  of  seven  per  cent. ;  and  this 
declaration  was  to  be  remade  every  three  years. 
Cosimo  overthrew  this  equitable  form  of  taxation 
and  substituted  for  it  the  more  ancient  and  unjust 
assessment  by  the  ruling  body,  graduated,  not  ac- 


S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS  49 


cording  to  income,  supposed  or  declared,  but  ac¬ 
cording  to  political  opinions.  The  result  was  the 
financial  ruin  and  beggary  of  the  Anti-Mediceans. 

S.  Antonino,  though  Cosimo’s  close  friend  and 
living  on  his  bounty,  was  moved  by  the  distress  of 
these  families,  too  proudly  born  to  beg  in  their  own 
city  and  too  ruinously  taxed  to  do  anything  but 
starve  in  silence.  He  thought  out  a  solution  to 
their  miseries.  His  remedy  was  explained  to 
twelve  citizens  whom  he  summoned  to  S.  Marco. 
Their  names  are  happily  known  to  us  and  their 
trades  no  less,  for  they  show  the  hold  that  S. 
Antonino  even  then  possessed  on  the  entire  city. 
Amongst  them  were  alike  the  political  friends  and 
enemies  of  the  Medici,  wealthy  bankers,  notaries, 
drapers,  silk-mercers,  a  shearer  and  a  boot-maker. 
Before  these  he  laid  his  scheme.  This  was,  to 
divide  Florence  up  into  six  districts,  over  each  of 
which  two  of  the  twelve  were  to  be  appointed. 
It  would  be  their  duty  to  collect  funds,  to  seek  out 
cases  deserving  of  help  and  to  disimburse  the 
moneys  in  their  own  divisions.  Especially  were 
they  to  direct  their  attentions  to  those  most  needy*, 
and  least  likely  to  complain,  the  fioveri  vergognosi , 
the  shame-faced  poor.  Their  headquarters  were 
to  be  in  the  little  Church  of  S.  Martino,  their 
directors  the  Friars  of  S.  Marco,  their  title  the 
Provveditori  dei  Poveri  Vergognosi ;  but  the  sim¬ 
ple  people  knew  them  and  call  them  even  to-day  the 
Buonomini  di  S.  Martino,  the  good  men  of  S. 
Martin. 

Nothing  was  to  lie  outside  the  scope  of  their 
E 


50 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


charity;  doctor’s  bills,  sick  nurses,  dowries  for 
marriageable  daughters,  premiums  for  a  lad’s  ap¬ 
prenticeship,  the  redemption  of  pawn-tickets,  gifts 
of  beds,  clothing,  food,  and  money,  were  part  of 
their  material  aids;  while  visiting  the  sick,  the 
consoling  of  the  faint-hearted,  the  staunching  of 
sorrow’s  wide-gaping  wounds,  the  spiritual  comfort 
of  prayers,  Masses,  sacraments  completed  the  archi¬ 
tectonic  chivalry  of  this  organisation. 

To  show  moreover  his  independence  of  all  save 
charity,  which  is  love — and  God  is  love — S.  An- 
tonino  added  two  further  injunctions  (i.)  that  the 
moneys  received  from  benefactors  were  never  to  be 
funded,  but  simply  taken  and  spent,  for  it  showed 
want  of  delicacy,  he  thought,  to  traffic  with  the 
alms  of  the  faithful;  (ii.)  that  no  authority,  civil 
or  ecclesiastical,  was  ever  to  demand  an  account 
of  the  sums  received  or  expended,  nor  to  take  upon 
itself  the  direction  of  the  society.  Both  injunctions 
the  Government  of  Florence  has  at  times  in  its 
history  endeavoured  unsuccessfully  to  set  aside  ; 
but  the  continuance  of  the  charity  for  five  hundred 
years  on  the  lines  laid  down  by  S.  Antonino  and 
its  failure  whenever  it  has  been  amended  are  prag¬ 
matic  proofs  of  the  wisdom  of  the  saintly  Prior. 

As  Archbishop  he  had  a  more  extended  scope  for 
labour  and  was  not  one  to  neglect  the  ever- widening 
field,  the  expanse  of  which  seemed  to  grow  greater 
before  him  as  he  toiled  onwards  to  the  sunset  and 
the  dawn.  Hardly  had  a  year  passed  in  his  epis¬ 
copal  office,  when  one  of  these  recurring  mediaeval 
plagues  attacked  the  city  fiercely.  The  Saint  has 
told  us  of  the  horrors  of  the  visitation  and  how  the 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS  5^ 

Magistrates  voted  him  sums  of  money  for  the  relief 
of  the  stricken  people,  but  he  has  not  told  us  of  his 
own  heroic  labours.  Fortunately  we  possess  ac¬ 
counts,  left  by  others  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  319,  n.  xviii. ; 
320,  n.e. ;  Summar.  pro  Canonis:  cap.  4,  n. 
xxxiii.)  who  watched  the  gentle  old  man,  leading 
his  mule  round  the  city,  up  and  down  its  twisting, 
scrambling  streets,  carrying  in  paniers  to  poor  and 
sick  and  dying  what  might  be  of  most  need.  Wine, 
bread,  vegetables,  medicines,  and  the  incomparable 
Bread  of  Angels  were  thus  constantly  at  hand  to  be 
given  out  to  the  people.  No  wonder  then  that  they 
recalled  on  his  behalf  the  perfect  example  of  the 
Master,  who  had  done  all  things  well.  Their 
memories  went  back  to  the  old  stories  of  that  One 
Perfect  Figure  who  walked  in  miracle-working 
mercy  the  lanes  of  Palestine. 

When  the  plague  had  spent  its  force,  there  fol¬ 
lowed  an  earthquake,  which  broke  down  even  the 
solidly-built  houses  of  those  days.  Moreover  the 
accompaniment  of  comets  and  meteors  suggested 
some  preternatural  influence  bent  on  ruining  Flor¬ 
ence.  Again  the  Archbishop  went  on  his  errands 
of  love,  helping  by  gift  and  counsel,  while  to  aid 
him  came  a  band  of  young  men  of  the  Buonomini 
of  S.  Martin.  He  further  composed  a  treatise  on 
these  strange  phenomena,  “  according  to  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  Aristotle  and  Albertus  Magnus,”  which 
for  all  its  halting  science  was  sufficient  to  root  out 
of  the  hearts  of  his  flock  their  superstitious  fear, 
instilled  by  the  weird  happenings.  S.  Antonino 
was  frightened  lest,  if  the  plague  came  back,  the 
fear  occasioned  by  the  comets  and  other  disturb- 


.52 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


ances  would  lay  his  people  open  to  infection.  For 
whatever  may  be  said  about  “  faith-healing,”  can 
obviously  be  repeated  even  more  emphatically 
about  “  faith- destroying.”  Self-suggestion  can  cer¬ 
tainly  cure,  and  no  less  certainly  kill. 

But  there  are  as  well  in  Florence  even  more 
lasting  monuments  of  his  great  episcopate  in 
permanent  institutions  set  up  for  the  betterment 
of  his  flock.  The  Spedale  degli  Innocenti,  famous 
also  for  another  reason,  still  cries  out  his  name  in 
the  streets.  It  was  founded,  it  is  true,  long  before 
by  Leonardo  Bruni  of  Arezzo,  the  great  literary 
glory  of  early  Florentine  Renaissance;  but  it  was 
not  opened  till  1444,  when  S.  Antonino  took  it 
under  his  especial  protection.  Children  had  always 
charmed  him,  delicate  child  as  he  himself  had  been, 
innocent  as  he  remained  till  he  had  passed  “  till 
where  beyond  these  voices  ”  there  is  no  more  sin. 
Here,  thought  he,  could  be  established  a  useful  in¬ 
stitution  for  those  hapless  little  ones  whom  the 
dissolution  of  the  bonds  of  moral  life  was  fast 
hurrying  into  the  world.  It  was  to  house  and  tend 
these  born  out  of  wedlock  and  left  to  the  public 
charge  for  their  maintenance  that  he  converted  the 
existing  charity.  So  Lucca  and  Andrea  della  Rob¬ 
bia  made  its  walls  alive  with  their  exquisite  infant 
forms,  the  fascinating  beauty  of  which,  made  the 
more  appealing  by  the  winsome  gestures  of  out¬ 
stretched  hands,  continuously  calls  upon  the  passer¬ 
by  for  alms. 

A  similar  enterprise,  but  one  which  shows  even 
more  clearly  the  character  of  his  work,  is  the 
Bigallo.  Originally  begun  by  another  Dominican 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


53' 


for  another  purpose,  by  S.  Peter  Martyr  for  a 
military  Order,  the  aim  of  which  was  to  be  the 
forcible  reduction  of  the  anti-social  Paterini,  it 
was  turned  by  the  good  Archbishop  to  a  gentler 
use.  The  Paterini  had  all  gone;  perhaps  because 
the  knights  had  seen  to  that,  or  perhaps  because 
the  dependance  on  Rome,  which  Florence  from 
time  to  time  found  so  necessary,  made  heresy  an  un- 
remunerative  commercial  investment.  In  any  case 
the  Paterini  had  ceased  to  be  of  interest,  and  the 
knights  had  outlived  their  serviceableness.  In  fact 
the  whole  establishment  had  somehow  become 
merged  in  the  famous  Burial  Confraternity  of  the 
Brothers  of  Pity,  whose  high-raised  hoods  of  black, 
with  the  gruesome  eyeholes,  at  once  revealing  and 
concealing,  may  be  still  noticed  in  Florence  on 
their  errands  of  mercy.  However,  S.  Antonino 
wanted  an  orphanage  for  poor  children.  Here  was 
a  likely  place,  almost  unoccupied.  So  he  estab¬ 
lished  in  it  an  institution  (though  that  hard-sound¬ 
ing  phrase  scarcely  describes  the  smoothly-moving 
home  he  set  up)  for  the  lost,  vagabond,  orphaned 
boys  and  girls  of  Florence. 

His  passion  then  was  for  the  poor.  All  he  had 
was  at  their  disposal,  for,  Archbishop  though  he 
was,  he  was  still  bound  by  his  vows  as  a  Dominican 
Friar,  whereby  he  was  wedded  to  poverty.  His  time 
was  laid  out  for  their  employment ;  his  eloquence 
pleaded  for  them  in  the  councils  of  the  citizens  ; 
his  pen  championed  their  cause  amid  the  graver 
gatherings  of  moral  theologians ;  his  memory 
hunted  through  the  long-winding  corridors  of  its 
astonishing  retentiveness  for  texts  from  Sacred 


54 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


Scripture,  the  Writings  of  the  Fathers,  the  Decretals 
of  the  Popes,  wherewith  to  assail  the  vulgar  worship 
of  wealth ;  his  will  broke  through  the  crusted  tra¬ 
ditions  of  a  hundred  years  and  put  on  the  vesture 
of  liberality — a  virtue  his  treatises  unfalteringly  ex¬ 
tol.  Perhaps  to  our  modern  ideas  of  things  beauti¬ 
ful  and  becoming  (and  even  it  may  be  to  his  own 
generation  which  could  be  wooed  and  gladdened 
by  the  gay,  delicious  fruits  and  flowers  of  the  ex¬ 
quisite  Della  Robbia)  he  went  to  excess,  for  he 
pulled  up  the  garden  which  backed  upon  the  epis¬ 
copal  palace,  scattered  its  lovely  blossoms,  and 
drove  the  spade  through  the  soft-grassed  lawns 
of  its  Cathedral  Close.  Here  he  planted  a  host 
of  vegetables,  chiefly  cabbages  and  turnips,  for  his 
fond-loved  poor;  and  in  it  for  the  most  destitute 
he  parcelled  out  allotments  ( Acta  S.  S. ;  Process 
C ononis.  Test.  46,  p.  345). 

After  all  this  detailed  work  for  God’s  wealth¬ 
less  children,  S.  Antonino  could  still  know  that 
there  were  limits  even  to  charity.  It  is  necessary 
to  make  this  reservation  in  these  days,  for  the  old 
spirit  of  what  is  called  familiarly  “  indiscriminate 
alms-giving  ”  has  alas !  quite  gone  out  of  fashion. 
Our  charities  now  are  all  organised.  A  strange 
thing,  surely,  to  try  to  organize  love !  Only  an 
unhumorous  age  could  venture  on  such  a  paradox. 
Still  in  deference  to  this  modem  spirit,  it  is  only 
fair  to  S.  Antonino  to  explain  that  he  could  detect 
and  punish  the  impostor.  Even  the  quaint  picture 
of  mediasval  life  that  the  following  story  reveals, 
makes  it  worth  the  telling. 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


55 


A  citizen  of  Florence  had  come  to  our  Saint  for 
a  marriage- dowry  for  his  three  daughters.  At  his 
wits’  end  to  raise  any  further  sums,  the  Archbishop 
bade  him  hasten  to  the  Church  of  the  Annunziata 
and  there  beseech  the  Mother  of  all  Mercy  to  hear 
his  request.  As  in  the  fervour  of  his  prayer  he 
knelt  in  silence,  the  distracted  father  overheard 
two  blind  beggars,  who,  imagining  themselves  to 
be  alone,  were  discussing  their  takings.  They  were 
in  high  feather  over  their  success.  One  had  got 
250  gold  crowns  sewed  into  his  cap,  while  the  other 
had,  hidden  away  on  his  person,  300  more.  Back 
came  the  citizen  to  the  Saint  to  tell  the  conversation 
he  had  by  chance  overheard.  Bitterly  he  de¬ 
nounced  this  abuse  of  public  generosity,  in  proof 
pf  which  he  had  brought  with  him  the  cap  of  the 
one  and  the  cloak  of  the  other.  The  Archbishop 
sternly  reprimanded  the  two,  not  for  begging  for 
alms,  but  because  they  had  begged  when  they  had 
no  need.  As  flagrantly  as  the  wealth-loving  mer¬ 
chants  whom  he  so  pitilessly  denounced,  they  had 
broken  his  great  law  of  contentment.  Then  with 
{heir  consent,  says  the  Chronicler  ( Acta  5.5., 
p.  344),  he  took  their  money  from  them,  giving 
back  to  the  one  25  ducats  and  30  to  the  other. 
The  rest  he  handed  over  for  the  dowries  of  the 
three  girls.  But  not  simply  thus  does  the  story 
finish.  S.  Antonino  was  not  one  to  deal  so  hardly 
with  the  two  blind  men.  The  tale  continues  that 
44  he  charged  himself  with  the  maintenance  of  these 
beggars  until  the  end  of  their  lives.” 

Full  of  that  charity  that  never  falleth  away,  he 


56  S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 

took  upon  himself  the  whole  administration  of  his 
own  charities.  Whenever  be  saw  distress  or  could 
detect  the  hollow  eye  of  want,,  there  he  was  anxious 
to  relieve  by  every  means  in  his  power.  Where 
institutions  were  needed,  or  should  be  diverted  to 
more  pressing  purposes,  or  were  stranded  for  lack 
of  funds,  there  he  found  scope  for  more  extended 
and  ampler  labour.  When  famine  or  plague  or 
earthquake  had  cast  the  shadow  of  death  along  the 
sunlit  streets  of  Florence,  he  found  his  time  elastic 
enough  to  allow  him  in  person,  not  merely  to  or¬ 
ganise  but  to  oversee.  Even  individual  cases  of 
starvation  or  out-crying  want  were  not  too  minute 
or  too  burdensome  to  be  left  to  others  to  investi¬ 
gate.  Only  some  young  men  of  the  city  do  we 
hear  of  as  his  helpers  or  the  Buonomini  or  his  own 
friars  from  S.  Marco  and  S.  Maria  Novella.  His 
household  was  reduced  to  six,  but  his  ideals  grew 
the  grander;  and  his  alms  seemed  like  persistent 
streams  from  never-failing  springs  of  wealth. 

Yet  was  his  charity  ever  true,  rooted  in  faith  and 
glowing  with  trustfulness  in  the  inherent  goodness 
of  redeemed  humanity.  It  was  synonymous  with 
justice  for  it  rested  on  fellowship  a!nd  its  piers 
were  driven  deep  down  into  that  human  nature 
whereby  all  we  mortals  are  akin.  Charity  for  him 
was  love  and  God  was  love.  Where  then  he  found 
“  storm  and  pestilence  and  famine  and  the  way¬ 
wardness  of  folk,”  there  all  the  more  were  oppor¬ 
tunities  opening  to  him  for  showing  his  love  of 
God  through  the  unmistakeable  working  of  his  love 
for  men. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

HIS  SOCIAL  IDEALS.1 

But  S.  Antonino  was  no  mere  doer  of  good 
deeds,  without  troubling  himself  any  further  as  to 
their  result.  He  worked  out  a  very  detailed  and 
practical  scheme  of  social  advancement,  which  is 
alive  with  the  same  problems  that  harass  the  minds 
of  our  generation,  and  he  even  spelt  it  out  in  ter¬ 
minology  that  has  about  it  the  air  of  modernity. 
It  is  inevitable  indeed  that  he  should  have  been 
enormously  influenced  by  the  theories  of  Aristotle, 
who  in  those  ages  was  regarded  in  the  phrase  of 
Dante,  as  the  “  Master  of  those  that  know.”  But 
his  was  no  blind  obedience,  no  dull  following  of 
another’s  ideas.  To  any  one  who  is  familiar  alike 
with  the  old  classic  writers  and  their  more  recent 
rivals,  in  social  and  political  economy,  the  works 
of  our  Saint  have  a  startling  value,  for  they  stand 
mid-way  between  and  link  together  old  and  new. 
Even  is  there  much  to  learn  from  the  very  fact  that 
his  circumstances  were  so  very  different  from  our 
own,  his  modes  of  thought  and  ours  “  as  the  poles 
asunder.”  They  come  upon  us  in  a  more  startling 
way,  stimulating  us,  widening  our  outlook  beyond 
our  own  narrow  furrow.  Thus  to  look  back  trains 
the  instinct  for  the  path  ahead;  for  to  eyes  not 
blinded  “  all  the  past,  read  true,  is  prophecy.” 

1  In  this  chapter  plentiful  use  has  been  made  of  the 
volume  by  Carl  Ilgner. 


53 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


We  must  begin,  says  S.  Antonino,  at  the  begin¬ 
ning,  we  mhis't  first  define  what  we  mean  by  a 
“  good  thing.”  Here  in  this  definition  lies,  he 
would  suggest,  the  dividing  line  of  all  economic 
treatises.  As  a  confirmed  scholastic,  then,  he  starts 
with  a  broad  truth:  “a  good  thing  is  what  all 
desire.”  But  he  makes  haste  at  once  to  qualify 
this  remark  before  it  has  had  time  to  work  mis¬ 
chief.  A  good  thing  is  what  all  desire,”  but 
God  alone  is  absolute  goodness,  He  alone  is  or  can 
be  desired  for  His  own  sake.  All  things  else  are 
Idesired  in  as  much  as  they  lead  on  to  Him  or  are 
considered  to  lead  on  to  Him.  He  can  be  sought 
for  as  an  end,  direct,  pointing  no  further ;  but 
pther  things  are  but  the  objects  of  our  desire  be¬ 
cause  we  conceive  of  them  as  taking  us  along  the 
pathway  of  our  pleasure,  easing  our  steps  in  life’s 
proving  pursuit,  guiding  our  journey  in  its  onward 
march.  He  is  the  be-all  and  end-all;  they  are 
never  to  be  the  ultimate  end  of  their  own  acquisi¬ 
tion.  The  rest  can  boast  themselves,  in  the  highest 
meaning  of  the  word,  “  useful  ”  to  human  kind; 
but  He  lifts  Himself  up  amid  the  other  tumultuous 
purposes  of  existence  and  proclaims  His  incom¬ 
municable  attribute  of  Finality. 

It  is  then,  S.  Antonino  would  say,  the  first  prin¬ 
ciple  of  economic  science  to  recognise  that  riches 
are  not  intended  as  an  end  in  themselves,  but  as 
a  means  to  an  end.  When  therefore  a  man  begins 
to  lay  stress  on  the  mere  accumulation,  the  con¬ 
tinual  piling  up,  of  wealth,  without  considering 
the  power,  or  comfort,  or  security  to  be  derived 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS  59 

l 

from  it,  he  has  obviously  misunderstood  the  very 
purpose  of  trade.  “  God  gave  us  natural  riches 
(as  property,  cattle,  food,  and  such  like)  and  also 
artificial  riches  (as  precious  metals,  clothing,  etc.), 
so  that  we  might  by  the  application  of  them  merit 
eternal  life”1  (I.  7,  3,  i.  p.  533);  “God  has 
bestowed  wealth  on  man  so  that  he  might  look  on 
Him  as  the  Well-wisher  of  the  race,  might  love 
Him,  and  in  His  Name  give  alms  to  those  in  need  ” 
(II.  1,  12,  i.  p.  192) ;  “  temporal  goods  are  given 
to  us  to  be  used  in  the  preservation  of  our  lives  ” 
(IV.  5,  17,  i.  p.  254).  Hence  he  adds  “pro¬ 
duction  is  on  account  of  man,  not  man  of  produc¬ 
tion.” 

Riches  then  (i.e.  the  full  complement  of 
economic  instruments)  are  good  things,  for  on  them 
the  Father  looked  from  the  beginning  with  ex¬ 
pressed  pleasure.  Hence  whatever  S.  Jerome  and 
his  learned  followers  may  note  on  the  meaning  of 
the  word  “  Mammon  ”  (viz.  that  it  signifies  in 
Syriac  “  iniquity  ”)  may  be  passed  over  as  not  of 
present  interest.  Wealth  of  whatever  kind  is  good, 
if  its  usefulness  be  only  properly  apprehended. 
For  all  these  things  were  ordained  by  God  for  the 
service  of  man  (I.  13,  2,  ix.  p.  668). 

S.  Antonino  then  will  have  none  of  that  modern 
comfort  which  the  millionaire  preaches  to  the  desti¬ 
tute,  that  poverty  in  itself  is  good.  In  itself,  he 
says,  it  is  an  evil,  though  indeed  out  of  it  good  may 
be  obtained  (IV.  12,  3,  p.  622).  By  his  posses- 

1  The  references  in  this  chapter  are  all  to  the  Summa 
Moraiis  in  4  volumes,  Verona,  1740. 


6o 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


sions  man  was  intended  to  ward  off  the  anxiety  of 
the  morrow  and  rest  in  simple  content.  He  was 
to  find  in  them  his  sustenance  and  livelihood,  and 
to  employ  them  in  the  support  of  his  family.  Be¬ 
yond  this  immediate  serviceableness  the  instru¬ 
ments  of  wealth,  as  has  been  observed  already, 
have  a  nobler  use  in  leading  men  on  to  God.  For 
this  removal  of  anxiety  and  this  content  are  but 
the  necessary  conditions  for  man  to  have  time  and 
leisure  to  hold  converse  with  His  Maker.  More¬ 
over  because  in  man  the  soul  is  of  greater  import 
than  the  body  and  has  always  the  prior  claims  to 
allegiance,  it  follows  that  the  whole  science  of 
economics  (i.e.  the  science  that  seeks  to  regulate 
and  adjust  the  relations  between  riches  and  life) 
is  ultimately  a  moral  one,  and  must  be  dominated 
by  principles  of  justice  and  must  harmonise  with 
the  Ten  Commandments.  Sin  accordingly  becomes 
an  economic  evil,  and  an  economic  evil  in  its  com¬ 
pleter  sense  becomes  a  sin. 

It  is  possible  therefore  for  these  “  goods  ” 
(wealth  in  its  varied  forms)  to  be  turned  to  evil 
use ;  and  this  is  because  either  they  are  evilly  ac¬ 
quired  or  evilly  distributed  or  evilly  consumed  (II. 
i>  12,  i.  p.  192;  IV.  14,  2',  4,  p.  735),  Here 
S.  Antonino  forestalls  the  great  modern  division 
of  Economics  into  Production,  Distribution,  and 
Consumption.  It  will  therefore  be  more  convenient 
and  certainly  clearer,  to  group  the  Saint’s  teaching 
under  these  three  chief  headings,  instead  of  follow¬ 
ing  his  own  order. 

Production,  says  the  Archbishop,  is  the  law  of 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


61 


life  (II.  8,  I,  pp.  291-293).  Other  animals  achieve 
their  end  through  the  blind  operation  of  instinct; 
but  man  is  called  upon  to  accomplish  his  under  the 
guiding  compass  of  his  reason.  He  must  see  to  do 
his  work,  for  work  he  must.  It  is  his  duty,  his 
perfection  and  his  happiness. 

This  labour  is  of  various  kinds,  for  the  arts  and 
crafts  which  man  has  devised  are  numberless.  The 
staple  trades  of  Florence  are  all  passed  in  review 
(I.  1,  3,  iii.  p.  34,  etc.) ;  the  manufacture  of  wool, 
the  associated  building-trades,  the  working  of 
metals,  the  shipping  industry,  agricultural  produc¬ 
tion,  pastoral  cultivation  of  flocks  and  herds,  the 
farming  of  fish  and  fowl,  the  medical  profession 
and  the  stage  are  the  special  forms  of  man’s  “  me¬ 
chanical  ”  skill  which  he  instances  by  name.  These 
are  the  chief  means  for  the  production  of  wealth. 

Previous  to  the  Fall  (and  the  same  still  holds 
good  with  a  not  inconsiderable  portion  of  mankind) 
manual  labour  was  undertaken  for  no  mere  need, 
but  for  the  pleasureable  stimulus  it  gave  the  mind 
in  exploring  the  powers  of  nature.  But  after  the 
expulsion  from  Paradise  it  became  for  the  majority 
of  men  a  stern  necessity,  for  the  direct  purpose  of 
production  is  the  sustaining  of  human  life  (our  own 
or  another’s) :  “  the  object  of  gain  is  that  by  its 
means  man  may  provide  for  himself  and  others 
according  to  their  state.  The  object  of  providing 
for  himself  and  others  is  that  they  may  be  able  to 
live  virtuously.  The  object  of  virtuous  life  is 
the  attainment  of  everlasting  glory  ”  (I.  1,  3,  iii. 
p.  34).  Our  modern  haste  and  consequent  over- 


62 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


production  therefore  would  be  repellent  to  him : 
“  to  acquire  by  labour  the  amount  of  food  sufficient 
for  preserving  one’s  being  requires  only  a  moderate 
amount  of  time  and  a  moderate  amount  of  anxiety  ” 
(IV.  12,  3,  i.  p.  623). 

But  each  man  has  his  own  peculiar  bent  or  in¬ 
clination,  with  which  he  has  been  endowed  by 
Divine  Providence  for  the  more  perfect  harmony 
of  the  Universe.  This  proper,  individual  talent 
must  be  employed  steadfastly  by  the  possessor  of 
it.  The  several  members  of  the  body  natural,  that 
by  their  diverse  powers  establish  the  just  balance 
of  a  living  organism,  are  paralleled  by  these  varied 
tastes  and  occupations  of  the  several  members  of 
the  body  politic.  By  this  classic  analogy,  which 
is  as  old  and  as  recent  as  political  speculation,  S. 
Antonino  constantly  finds  help  in  his  exposition  of 
the  social  law. 

Further  it  is  well  to  notice  that  every  work 
should  be  rightfully  intentioned,  be  itself  a  lawful 
thing,  and  its  achievement  be  executed  with  per¬ 
fect  prudence.  Hence  the  Archbishop  notes  many 
of  the  faulty  commercial  practices  of  his  day.  It 
is  as  a  Father  Confessor  that  he  is  writing,  treat¬ 
ing  economic  science  from  the  ethical  point  of  view. 
He  enumerates  among  other  things,  false  weights 
and  measures,  cloth  not  properly  shrunk  or  so 
tightly  stretched  as  to  split  at  the  slightest  pressure 
put  on  it,  houses  built  so  badly  that  the  roofs  let 
in  the  wet  and  the  walls  were  no  protection  against 
heat  or  cold,  ill-seasoned  wood  for  carving,  paper 
that  made  all  attempts  at  drawing  on  it  a  failure. 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


63 


ink  watered  beyond  all  usefulness,  books  badly 
bound  or  wretchedly  coloured  or  filled  out  to  an 
extravagant  price  by  too  wide  margins  and  spaces. 

Now  this  labour  of  man  becomes  partly  com¬ 
plicated  and  partly  simplified  when  the  difference 
of  the  earth’s  productive  force  and  the  varied 
tastes  and  callings  of  individual  men  are  taken  into 
consideration ;  for  it  not  infrequently  falls  out  that 
one  has  a  superfluity  of  some  article  of  necessity, 
and  a  dearth  of  another,  either  because  he  finds 
the  production  of  that  one  article  more  congenial 
to  his  nature  or  because  his  locality  supplies  it  and 
not  that  other  thing  (III.  8,  1,  pp.  294-296). 
Hence  came  into  existence  commerce  in  its  primi¬ 
tive  form  of  barter;  and,  because  barter  was  at 
times  cumbersome  and  difficult  of  adjustment, 
money  was  invented  as  a  medium  of  exchange. 
Then  as  forms  of  transit  grew  more  rapid  and 
inter-national  relations  sped  apace,  the  ever- widen¬ 
ing  communications  of  commerce  knit  together  all 
the  world.  It  hastened  from  shore  to  shore,  bring¬ 
ing  peace  in  its  wake,  and  giving  to  the  whole 
commonwealth  of  man  the  particular  benefits  of 
each  group  of  peoples  (I.  I,  3,  3,  pp.  34-35; 
II.  i,  16,  3,  p.  255).  With  commerce  too,  truth¬ 
fulness,  justice  and  the  other  virtues  assumed  a 
new  importance  for  their  necessity  became  social 
as  well  as  moral.  Moral  and  social  life  were  at 
once  fused  beyond  all  disentanglement:  “  Among 
men  no  social  life  is  at  all  possible,  except  on  the 
understanding  that  each  speaks  the  truth.  There¬ 
fore  deceit,  lying,  and  falsehood  are  destructive  of 


64 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


human  society,  and  truth  its  preserver  ”  (IV.  5,  1  5, 
iii.  p.  247). 

Along  with  all  this,  S.  Antonino  insists  on  the 
principle  rightly  understood,  which  Karl  Marx  has 
in  recent  years  made  so  popular,  that  the  value  of 
things  commercial  (i.e.  exchangeable)  depends  up¬ 
on  labour,  whether  of  head  or  hand.  Things  in 
themselves  are  useless,  until  they  have  been  either 
completed  by  human  industry  or  at  any  rate  trans¬ 
ferred  to  more  profitable  markets  by  human  labour 
(II.  1,  7,  xvi.  p.  99). 

Now  the  question  which  in  the  Thirteenth,  Four¬ 
teenth  and  Fifteenth  Centuries  agitated  the  intelli¬ 
gences  of  moralists  was  as  to  whether  any  gain  in 
business  was  at  all  lawful  and  if  so,  up  to  what 
precise  amount.  This  difficulty  was  part  of  a  larger 
one,  which  dealt  with  the  whole  subject  of  usury. 
Starting  from  the  principle  of  Aristotle  that  money 
cannot  of  itself  beget  money  (phrased  so  admirably 
by  Shakespeare  in  the  paradox  to  “  breed  from 
barren  metal  ”)  the  mediaeval  writers  were  evi¬ 
dently  puzzled  as  to  how  to  justify  the  taking  of 
interest.  Money  can  be  multiplied  only  by  the 
labour  of  him  to  whom  it  has  been  lent  out ;  con¬ 
sequently  for  the  lender  to  make  capital  out  of 
the  very  industry  and  commercial  skill  of  the  bor¬ 
rower  was,  in  their  opinion,  opposed  to  the  law 
of  nature,  for  no  man  has  any  right  to  sell  his  own 
native  capacity  (III.  1,  6,  i.  p.  70),  for  by  usury 
a  man  sells  a  thing  twice  over.  “  Money  of  itself 
does  not  increase,  but  becomes  profitable  in  trade 
only  by  the  skill  of  the  trader  ”  (II.  1,  7,  xvi. 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


65 


p.  99).  “  If  the  object  of  the  trader  is  principally 

cupidity,  which  is  the  root  of  all  evils,  then  cer¬ 
tainly  trade  itself  is  evil.  But  that  trade  (as 
natural  and  necessary  for  the  needs  of  human  life) 
is,  according  to  Aristotle,  in  itself  praiseworthy, 
which  serves  some  good  purpose,  i.e.  supplying  the 
needs  of  human  life.  If  therefore  the  trader  seeks 
a  moderate  profit  for  the  purpose  of  providing  for 
himself  and  family  according  to  the  becoming  for¬ 
tunes  of  their  state  of  life,  or  to  enable  him  to  aid 
the  poor  more  generously,  or  even  goes  into  com¬ 
merce  for  the  sake  of  the  common  good  (lest,  for 
example,  the  State  should  be  without  what  its  life 
requires),  and  consequently  seeks  a  profit  not  as 
an  ultimate  end  but  merely  as  a  wage  of  labour,  he 
cannot  in  that  case  be  condemned  ”  (II.  1,  16,  ii. 
p.  250).  S.  Antonino  goes  on  to  take  the  case 
where  a  man  needs  something,  the  loss  of  which 
will  be  grave  inconvenience  to  the  owner.  The 
latter  may  in  these  circumstances  demand  a  higher 
price,  not  looking  to  the  value  of  the  thing  in  itself, 
but  its  value  to  him,  i.e.  not  looking  to  the  thing, 
but  to  the  inconvenience  its  loss  will  occasion  him. 
“  I  believe  that  any  one  can  claim  compensation,  not 
merely  for  the  harm  done  him,  but  also  for  the  gain 
he  might  otherwise  have  obtained,  if  he  be  a  mer¬ 
chant  accustomed  to  engage  his  money  in  business. 
The  same  holds  good,  even  if  he  be  not  a  merchant 
but  have  only  the  intention  of  investing  his  funds 
in  lawful  trade ;  but  not  if  he  be  a  man  who  hoards 
his  wealth  in  coffers  ”  (II.  1,  7,  xviii.  p.  10 1). 
The  Archbishop  is  even  at  pains  to  justify  the  tak- 

F 


66 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


;  i 


ing  of  a  percentage  on  bills  of  exchange,  because 
of  their  great  convenience  for  travellers  and  pil¬ 
grims  who  would  otherwise  have  to  carry  large  sums 
of  money  about  with  them  (II.  I,  7,  xlviii.  p.  123). 

His  argument  all  the  way  through  is  that  money 
is  of  itself  not  productive,  but  that  its  profit  comes 
from  the  skill,  industry,  energy  of  the  man  who 
makes  use  of  it.  Therefore  if  one  man  lends 
another  money  and  expects  a  larger  return  than 
the  capital  lent,  it  can  only  be  because  of  the  in¬ 
dustry,  etc.,  of  the  man  to  whom  the  money  is  lent. 
In  other  words  the  lender  is  taxing,  not  his  loan,  but 
the  personal  qualities  of  the  borrower,  he  is  taxing 
what  does  not  belong  to  him  at  all.  Hence,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Saint,  the  only  legitimate  claim  for  in¬ 
terest  could  be  that  the  lender  was  sacrificing  a 
gain  that  he  would  otherwise  have  made  in  trade. 
Of  course  it  is  just  this  claim  that  now-a-days  holds 
good.  According  to  our  way  of  looking  at  it,  the 
lender  says  to  the  borrower  “  Yes,  you  can  have 
my  money,  if  you  are  willing  to  pay  me  for  the  use 
of  it.  I  could  get  a  percentage  of  profit  in  business 
with  my  capital,  and  if  you  want  to  induce  me  to 
put  money  into  your  concern,  you  must  let  me  see 
that  I  do  not  lose  by  it.” 

The  result  of  these  quotations  can,  I  think,  be 
briefly  stated,  by  saying  that  S.  Antonino  denied 
the  productivity  of  coin,  but  admitted  the  pro¬ 
ductivity  of  capital.  So  long  as  commerce  dealt 
with  a  question  of  mere  gold  or  precious  metal, 
it  was  sheer  usury  to  demand  for  its  use  an  added 
sum  called  interest;  but  when  funded  accounts 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


67 


could  be  employed  as  capital  1  and  become  distinct 
from  passing  currency,  some  form  of  interest  was 
evidently  lawful,  for  then  came  into  play  the  loss 
sustained  by  the  lender  who  might  have  put  out  his 
money  into  other  commercial  enterprises  (II.  1,  1 1, 
ii.  p.  163). 

Moreover  there  already  existed  State-loans, 
which  in  Genoa,  Venice,  Florence,  etc.,  paid  to 
the  citizens  from  whom  the  money  had  been  bor¬ 
rowed  an  annual  return  which  was  regarded  as  a 
percentage  on  sums  received.  But  these  S.  An- 
tonino  judges,  on  the  authority  of  Master  Nicholas, 
an  English  Dominican,  to  be  allowable,  for  they 
were  forced  loans,  exceedingly  inconvenient,  for 
which  therefore  the  interest  paid  might  be  looked 
upon  rather  as  compensation :  “  When  there  is  any 
necessity,  the  State  can  demand  from  its  subjects 
(even  against  their  will)  lawful  help  in  money  and 
personal  service”  (II.  1,  1 1,  pp.  161-191). 

But  forced  loans  disturb  political  security,  so  he 
begs  the  Civil  Authority  to  come  quite  frankly  and 
get  the  money  it  requires  from  its  subjects,  freely. 
To  do  this  it  must  offer  a  percentage  of  interest  to 
induce  them  to  part  with  money  that  would  other- 

1  It  can  be  established  that  S.  Antonino  had  a  clear  idea 
of  what  we  mean  by  capital ,  from  the  fact  that  he  includes 
in  the  nature  of  a  trade,  not  the  mere  material  but  the  instru¬ 
ments  as  well;  not  only  the  water  and  fish,  but  the  boats 
and  nets.  Even  the  very  word  is  in  his  vocabulary:  Pecunia 
in  mercationibus  ut  vero  capitali  (II.  i.  7.  xv.  p.  99),  and 
in  another  place,  speaking  of  stock  which  through  a  period  of 
over-production  brings  in  no  gain  amittant  de  capitali  (II. 
i.  8.  lii.  p.  129),  and  again  still  more  clearly  pecunia  nisi  per 
modum  capitalist  ita  ut  emptionibus  ct  mercationibus  deputeturt 
not  valet  seipsum  multiplicare  (II.  i.  8.  xvi.  p.  139). 


68 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


wise  be  employed  in  trade,  and  this  freely-offered 
interest  removes  from  the  transaction  all  charge  of 
usury.  “  When  a  prince  allows  usury,  it  is  because 
he  has  in  mind  the  good  of  his  whole  people,  for 
there  would  be  a  great  deal  of  harm  done  if  there 
were  no  money  that  could  be  borrowed.  And  few 
would  offer  to  lend  money  unless  they  could  get 
some  profit  by  it  ”  (III.  3,  4,  vii.  p.  192). 

In  a  word  the  principle  that  he  advocates  per¬ 
petually  is  that  it  is  wrong  to  lend  money  directly 
for  interest  or  to  demand  interest  precisely  as  such. 
The  intention  may  spoil  the  moral  worth  of  the 
action.  So  long  as  the  banker  is  prepared  to  de¬ 
mand  a  larger  return  for  the  moneys  he  has  ad¬ 
vanced  to  the  merchant,  solely  on  the  ground  of 
his  loss,  or  the  danger  of  his  not  getting  repayment 
(III.  8,  3,  i.  p.  303;  II.  1,  7,  xxi.  p.  102),  or  of 
any  other  such  reason  he  may  be  allowed  to  con¬ 
tinue  ;  but  if  his  motive  is  simply  to  exact  interest 
on  the  score  of  a  loan,  then  he  is  a  usurer  and  as 
such  stands  condemned.  Hence  he  bitterly  de¬ 
nounces  “  those  of  the  nobility  who  are  unwilling 
to  work,  and  yet  who  directly  seek  by  lending  their 
money  to  merchants  to  secure  an  annual  interest 
besides  the  eventual  return  of  an  undiminished 
capital,”  for  he  notices  that  though  they  call  this 
“  a  deposit,  it  is  clear  usury  ”  (II.  1,  6,  xx.  p.  80). 

Having  in  this  way  settled  that  some  gain  is  law¬ 
ful  in  commerce,  he  endeavours  to  fix  its  amount, 
and  ventures  into  the  deep  sea  of  maximum  and 
minimum  price.  The  value  of  an  article,  he  here 
considers  not  in  itself  ( valor  natur alls'),  but  pre- 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


69 


cisely  in  relation  to  society  ( valor  tisualis),  for 
though,  he  says,  a  mouse  of  itself  as  a  living  thing 
is  of  a  higher  value  than  dead  wheat,  yet  to  us  men 
it  is  of  much  less  value  (II.  1, 1  6,  iii.  pp.  255-257). 
I11  this  latter  sense  the  value  of  an  article  depends 
chiefly  on  its  (i.)  usefulness,  (ii.)  its  rarity  or  the 
difficulty  of  obtaining  it,  (iii.)  its  pleasureableness. 
Thus  wheat  bread  is  more  valuable  because  more 
efficient  than  barley  bread;  corn  more  valuable  in 
time  of  want  than  at  other  times  because  more 
rare;  one  horse  or  ornament  more  valuable  to  an 
individual  because  more  productive  to  him  of  per¬ 
sonal  delight.  Of  course  this  last  division  rests 
on  the  varying  and  reversible  judgments  of  the 
particular  tastes  and  fancies  of  individual  men. 

It  is  possible  then  for  a  prudent  man  to  appraise 
the  value  of  anything,  not  indeed  with  absolute 
exactness,  but  conjecturally  and  allowing  for  diver¬ 
gences  of  place  and  time  and  people.  Indeed 
S.  Antonino,  following  what  he  tells  us  was  the 
legal  practice  of  his  century,  allows  half  as  much 
again  of  the  appraised  value  as  the  maximum  of 
selling-price,  and  half  as  little  as  the  minimum 
of  buying-price  (II.  1,  16,  iii.  p.  256).  An  article 
therefore  that  has  been  conjecturally  valued  at  one 
florin  could  be  conscientiously  sold  at  any  price  up 
to  one  florin  and  a  half,  or  conscientiously  bought 
at  any  price  down  to  half  a  florin.  But  these  are 
the  extreme  limits. 

Finally  under  the  heading  of  production  and  the 
fixing  of  a  just  price,  it  is  well  to  notice  that  S. 
Antonino  fiercely  forbids  any  formation  of  trusts 


70 


S.  ANT0NIN0  AND 


or  cartels  or  the  authorizing  of  monopolies  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  dearer  prices.  Above  all,  no 
power  is  to  be  allowed  to  individuals  by  the  State 
of  exploiting  for  their  own  ends  the  food  and  other 
necessaries  of  the  people.  When  a  man,  he  says, 
buys  corn  at  harvest  time  and  wine  during  the 
vintage  so  as  to  sell  later  at  a  higher  price,  Canon 
Law  holds  the  profit  obtained  by  this  means  to  be 
unwarrantable,  if  it  be  done  out  of  a  lust  for  gain, 
but  not  if  it  be  done  out  of  necessity.  This  neces¬ 
sity  may  be  private  or  public :  public  as  in  the  case 
of  Joseph  who  from  foresight  bought  during  the 
seven  years  of  plenty  to  prepare  for  the  seven  years 
of  want;  private  as  when  a  man  sees  he  will 
have  nothing  to  sell  later  unless  he  buys  imme¬ 
diately.  He  may  in  this  case  sell  more  dearly, 
but  not  above  market  price.  But  “  when  mono¬ 
polist  merchants  agree  together  to  preserve  a  fixed 
price,  so  as  to  secure  an  unlimited  profit,  they  are 
guilty  of  sinful  trading.”  One  canonist  had  sug¬ 
gested  that  the  Bishop  of  the  locality  should  de¬ 
clare  authoritatively  the  limit  of  such  profit.  But 
S.  Antonino,  though  equally  desirous  of  some 
definite  decision  in  particular  cases  would  “  rather 
take  it  out  of  the  hands  of  the  prelates  and  leave 
it  to  the  Civil  Authority,  especially  in  fixing  the 
price  of  food-stuffs  and  other  things  necessary  to 
the  people’s  life”  (III.  8,  3,  iv..  p.  306;  II. 
1,  16,  ii.  p.  252). 

The  Distribution  of  these  “  goods  ”  in  the  com¬ 
munity  is  no  less  a  question  of  moral  law,  for  it 
must  be  in  strict  accord  with  justice ;  else  there  will 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


7 1 


be  continual  turmoil  in  the  State,  restless  constitu¬ 
tion-making,  unceasing  friction  between  jarring 
factions  each  in  turn  exiling  the  other  (IV.  5,  3, 
v.  pp.  183-184).  The  good  Archbishop  of  Florence 
had  not  to  go  far  afield  to  learn  all  this.  The  un¬ 
even  distribution  of  wealth,  before  and  after  the 
revolt  of  the  Ciompi  or  unfranchised  in  1396,  was 
the  cause  of  very  many  disturbances  in  his  own 
city.  Not  indeed  that  S.  Antonino  desired  an  equal 
division  of  all  property  of  the  State,  for  it  was  the 
varied  relationships  of  rich  and  poor,  of  ruler  and 
ruled,  which  to  his  mind  made  up  the  harmony  of 
the  Universe:  “  Riches  are  not  equally  distributed. 
But  this  comes  not  by  man’s  intention,  for  we  often 
see  that  the  most  industrious  are  the  least  successful 
and  the  most  idle  abound  in  good  things ;  nor  is 
it  due  to  the  domination  of  some  evil  spirit  acting 
without  the  Divine  permission.  But  from  the  Lord 
God,  either  by  direct  ordinance  or  at  least  by  His 
allowing  it,  comes  this  unequal  distribution  of 
wealth  ”  (II.  1,  12,  i.  p.  192).  From  the  analogy 
of  nature  he  argued  against  any  dead  level  of  exact 
humanity.  For  the  intelligence  of  some  is  fit  only 
to  be  under  the  direction  of  others ;  and  the  weak¬ 
ened  wills  of  some  need  the  supreme  control  of 
others ;  and  the  advancement  of  social  well-being 
seems  only  possible  when  the  few  govern  the  many 
(IV.  2,  5,  vi.  p.  60).  Of  course  he  has  no  intention 
of  suggesting,  as  Aristotle  would  appear  to  have 
taught,  that  servants  and  masters  were  of  a  different 
human  species,  for  God  did  not  create  “  the  poor 
from  earth  and  the  nobles  from  precious  metals, 


7  2 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


but  all  we  are  descended  from  our  father  Adam,  of 
whom  it  is  written  that  God  made  him  from  the 
dust  ”  (II.  4,  4,  vi.  p.  581).  So  that  S.  Antonino 
steadfastly  holds  to  it  that  the  inequality  of  posses¬ 
sions  and  power  in  the  world  is  due  to  Divine 
permission  or  even  to  a  direct  Divine  command; 
it  stands  as  an  utterly  irremediable  law. 

But  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the  present 
state  of  society  is  such  as  God  would  have  it  to  be. 
For  first  of  all  the  Archbishop  lays  it  down  as 
an  indisputable  principle  that  it'  is  the  duty  of  the 
State  to  provide  for  all  its  members  (II.  1,  11, 
i.  p.  16 1).  Even  when  they  have  got  past  work 
or  for  some  other  reason  (such  as  ill-health,  etc.), 
are  unable  to  support  themselves,  then  society 
has  the  right  and  the  duty  to  take  from  those  who 
have  more  than  they  need  and  to  hand  it  over  to 
their  less  fortunate  fellow-citizens:  “for  whose¬ 
soever  sustenance  his  own  labour  sufficeth  not,  the 
others  of  his  own  society  who  can  work  harder  than 
they  have  need  or  who  possess  riches,  are  obliged 
to  provide  by  the  natural  law  of  charity  and  friend¬ 
ship  ”  (IV.  12,  3,  i.,p.  623).  Poverty  there¬ 
fore  in  the  sense  of  destitution  must  be  ruled  out 
of  the  State  (II.  1,  1 1,  i.  p.  161).  Every  one 
should  have  a  sufficiency  of  food,  clothing,  and 
accommodation  and,  .unless  such  is  guaranteed  to 
the  subjects,  the  rulers  are  at  fault:  “For  this 
reason  has  God  established  the  rich  and  mighty 
over  the  poorer  folk  that  they  should  provide,  not 
for  their  own  private  ends,  but  rather  for  the  com¬ 
mon  good”  (IV.  3,  6,  ii.  p.  86).  “The  prince 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


73 


ought  diligently  to  see  to  it  that  there  be  no 
want  in  the  city,  but  rather  abundance  of  pro¬ 
visions.  For  this  reason  he  must  foresee  and  pre¬ 
vent  any  such  destitution,  by  providing  especially 
for  the  corn  of  the  people  (III.  3,  1,  v.  p.  170; 
IV.  2,  6,  i.  p.  64).  “  It  is  to  the  interest  of  the 

State  to  concern  itself  with  the  citizens,  that  they 
be  not  dragged  down  into  poverty”  (II.  1  1,  i, 
i.  p.  16 1).  From  whatever  cause  then  the  people 
are  in  distress,  whether  through  their  own  fault  or 
not  (for  S.  Antonino  makes  no  distinction  at  all), 
the  State  is  bound  to  provide,  though  it  may  in¬ 
flict  punishment  at  the  same  time  upon  all  who 
will  not  work  according  to  their  ability.  Upon  all 
lies,  what  one  may  call,  the  great  law  of  content; 
the  duty  of  working  for  one’s  own  support  and 
acquiring  a  sufficiency  or  “  decency  ”  over  and 
above  the  necessaries  of  life.  This:  duty  is  of 
moral  obligation,  for,  says  the  Archbishop  with 
something  of  that  fire  with  which  Rousseau  set  the 
Revolution  ablaze,  “  the  good  of  the  State  is  some¬ 
thing  divine  ”  (IV.  3,  6,  p.  86). 

Thus  we  may  say  the  Saint  looked  far  ahead. 
He  views  social  life  with  friendly  feeling.  The 
family,  with  its  triple  group  of  relationship  be¬ 
tween  master  and  servant,  man  and  wife,  parent 
and  child,  is  “  the  union  of  domestic  persons 
through  daily  actions  ordained  to  the  necessities  of 
life”  (I.  14,  6,  v.  p.  757).  In  it  the  wife’s 
position  is  “  to  be  solicitous  and  anxious  over  what 
is  done  in  and  for  the  family,  and  therefore  to  re¬ 
main  at  home  ”  (IV.  2,  5,  ii.  p.  55).  She  is  not 


74 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


to  take  upon  herself  the  offices  of  her  husband 
whose  business  it  is  to  engage  in  trade  lest  the 
family  be  without  the  means  of  subsistence.  And 
though  he  has  gentle  scorn  for  those  who  glory  in 
their  equipages  as  if  “  God  was  foolish  in  giving 
men  legs  at  all  ”  (II.  4,  4,  vi.  p.  581),  he  is  human 
enough  in  feeling  to  allow  women  to  wear  false 
hair  “  if  their  station  demands  it  or  if  thereby  they 
are  more  pleasing  to  their  husbands  ”  (II.  1,  23, 
xiii.  p.  326).  “God  inspires  the  minds  of  men 
to  furnish  hospitals  in  which  provision  shall  be 
made  for  the  poor  and  destitute,  for  healthy  as  well 
as  for  sick,  and  for  foundlings’’  ‘(III.  1 1,  i. 
p.  482).  He  speaks  also  of  homes  for  the  aged, 
for  wayfarers,  for  orphans,  for  quite  small  babies, 
and  warns  the  attendants  to  persevere  in  their  char¬ 
itable  efforts  even  if  the  inmates  be  ungrateful  and 
discontented.  He  alludes  also  (it  is  said,  a  rare 
thing  in  the  Middle  Ages)  to  hospitals  set  apart 
solely  for  the  sick. 

When  such  institutions  are  rich  the  doctors 
should  be  well-paid,  for  they  are  to  help  the 
patients  not  with  medicines  only  but  with  kindly 
words,  and  these,  it  is  hinted,  are  not  likely 
to  come  from  a  discontented  man  (III.  10,  1,  i. 
p.  483).  Evidently  too  the  idea  is  contemplated 
of  doctors  salaried  by  the  State  ( medici  salarati  a 
oommunitate — III.  7,  2,  p.'2  83).  And  it  is  interest¬ 
ing  to  note  that  when  discussing  the  administration 
of  hospitals,  S.  Antonino  considers  that  women 
should  certainly  direct  such  as  are  for  women  only, 
and  even  in  such  as  are  for  men,  he  sees  nothing 
incongruous  in  women  nurses  and  matrons  (III.  1 1, 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


75 


pp.  482-503).  A  last  quotation  may  be  allowed 
to  speak  for  itself  and  is  typical  of  the  author: 
“  Chemists  sin  when  selling  unnecessarily  on  holi¬ 
days  of  obligation,  but  of  course  there  is  no  sin 
when  medicines  are  sold  for  the  sick  or  when  such 
like  transactions  take  place;  for  as  regards  this, 
in  all  well-regulated  cities  like  Florence,  the  laws 
arrange  that  each  chemist’s  shop  successively  shall 
be  open  for  a  short  time,  so  that,  at  any  hour  of  the 
day,  there  will  always  be  one  to  which  the  people 
can  go  ”  (III.  8,  4,  vi.  p.  318). 

As  a  young  man  he  had  seen  visions,  as  an  old 
man  he  dreams  dreams.  He  sketches  out  in  terms 
curt  and  philosophic,  without  one  trace  of  rhetoric 
or  declamation,  a  city,  wherein  the  poor  and  sick 
shall  be  provided  for  in  hospitals  (IV.  3,  6,  ii. 
p.  86)  and  institutions  (III.  3,  6,  ii.  p.  196); 
where  property  shall  be  more  fairly  distributed, 
where  family-life  made  up  of  complementary  be¬ 
ings,  the  husband  and  wife,  whose  work  and  genius 
are  the  more  peaceably  united  because  so  totally 
distinct,  shall  be  the  centre  of  the  State’s  pre¬ 
occupation  (IV.  2,  5,  ii.  pp.  56-57;  I.  14,  5,  iv. 
p.  735) ;  where  the  children  shall  be  properly  edu¬ 
cated  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  in  letters,  and  in 
the  arts  and  crafts  useful  to  them  in  acquiring  their 
livelihoods  (IV.  2,  6,  i.  64).  Here  masters  and 
servants  with  their  mutual  duties,  of  forbearance, 
personal  supervision,  and  just  remuneration  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  obedience  and  honest  labour  on 
the  other  (IV.  2,  5,  < vi.  p.  60;  IV.  2,  5,  vii. 
pp.  61-62)  shall  unite  in  perfect  peace.  Here  the 
individual  right  to  acquire  private  property  shall  be 


7  6 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


absolutely  recognised  as  of  Divine  natural  law,  but 
the  exercise  of  that  right  be  restrained  by  direction 
of  the  State,  which  may  even,  should  need  arise,  in¬ 
sist  on  the  common  ownership  by  the  State  of  all 
the  forms  of  wealth.  Still  it  is  only  fair  to  the 
State  to  note  that  he  regards  such  a  state  of 
society  as  violent  and  impracticable  but  not 
evidently  contrary  to  justice  (II.  I,  14,  i.  pp.  224- 
225).  Finally  his  most  trenchant  sayings  concern 
the  just  wage  which  every  worker  should  receive. 
This  should  be  paid  promptly  and  be  according  to 
the  condition  of  the  labourer,  his  skill,  the  danger 
of  his  occupation,  the  need  and  number  of  his 
children,  the  customs  of  the  country,  etc.  (III.  8,  4, 
p.  308;  II.  1,  17,  viii.  pp.  268-269). 

Lastly  as  a  sign  of  S.  Antonino’s  gentle  tender¬ 
ness,  a  short  sentence  may  be  quoted  wherein  he 
lays  it  down  that  an  employer  of  labour  should 
“  rather  care  for  and  tend  his  sick  workmen  than 
be  in  a  hurry  to  send  them  away  into  a  hospital 
(III.  3,  6,  vii.  p.  201). 

The  last  great  division  of  political  economy  con¬ 
cerns  Consumption.  Here  also,  as  we  have  before 
quoted  from  S.  Antonino,  evils  may  come  in.  For 
it  is  a  sad  thing  to  see,  side  by  side,  extravagance 
and  penury,  to  see  horses  and  mules  gaily  capari¬ 
soned  while  the  poor  perish  from  hunger ;  or  in  a 
plague-stricken  city  when  the  sick  lie  naked,  cold, 
and  foodless  to  find  men  and  women  dressed  with 
vain  and  gaudy  ornaments  (II.  4,  4,  vi.  p.  581; 
II.  4,  5,  ii.  p.  591).  Extravagance  is  as  much  a 
social  and  moral  evil  as  the  unjust  distribution  of 
wealth.  Each  person  has  a  prime  obligation  to 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


77 


support  himself  and  his  family.  When  this  has 
been  discharged  he  has  the  further  duty  of  paying 
to  the  society  to  which  he  belongs  its  lawful 
taxes,  such  as  the  rulers  are  obliged  to  impose 
for  the  proper  administration  of  their  dominions, 
for  the  security  of  the  roads  (II.  I,  i  2,  vi.  pp.  195- 
196),  for  the  safe-guarding  against  times  of  famine 
(IV.  2,  6,  i.  p.  64),  for  the  beautifying  of  the  city 
(IV.  3,  6,  ii.  p.  86),  etc.  These  taxes  the  citizen 
is,  for  social  reasons,  morally  obliged  to  pay ;  and 
by  making  a  false  declaration  of  income  (is  S.  An- 
tonino  thinking  of  the  eatasto  ? ) ,  a  man  commits 
theft  against  the  State  and  is  bound  to  restitution — 
unless  of  course  it  is  a  generally  recognised  custom 
for  each  to  give  in  an  incomplete  balance-sheet. 
On  the  other  hand  taxation  indulged  in  out  of  class- 
hatred  or  political  spite  is  no  less  unjust.  The 
citizens  iso  acting  commit  moral  sin  and  are  bound 
to  restitution  (II.  1,  1 3,  iii.  p.  215). 

After  his  duties  of  justice  to  himself,  his  family, 
and  his  State,  (it  is  on  this  order  that  the  Saint  lays 
great  stress),  the  citizen  is  bound  to  almsgiving, 
according  to  his  means.  From  his  superfluities  he 
must  dispense  to  the  needy  and  poor  and  to  the 
adornment  of  God’s  temples.  But  this  obligation 
is  rather  of  charity  than  of  justice,  so  that  before 
he  gives  to  beggars  or  the  Church  he  must  pay 
his  debts.  In  this  relation  he  quotes  with  evident 
approval  a  saying  of  S.  Ambrose:  “  The  Lord  de- 
sireth  not  the  pouring  out  of  wealth,  but  its  ad¬ 
ministration.”  The  importance  of  this  prudent  dis¬ 
tribution  of  alms  is  apparent,  he  says,  from  the 
point  of  view  alike  of  rulers  and  subjects  (IV.  5, 


78  S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 

3,  v.  p.  183).  “  It  is  not  sufficient  that  a  man 

give  alms,  he  must  also  take  the  trouble  to  give 
them  in  the  right  way”  .(II.  1,  24,  iv.  336). 
Hence  he  is  careful  to  note  that  true  generosity  does 
not  consist  merely  “  in  the  suitable  use  and  admin¬ 
istration  ”  of  money,  but  it  requires  as  well  “  the 
preparing  of  opportunities  for  its  proper  exercise  ” 
(IV.  5,  1 7,  i.  p.  253). 

Last  of  all,  over  and  beyond  these  obligations 
comes  the  virtue  of  magnificence  or  generosity. 
This  is  a  virtue  which  evidently  appealed  enor¬ 
mously  to  our  Saint  for  it  is  inculcated  in  almost 
every  chapter  of  his  stupendous  work.  To  Floren¬ 
tines  especially,  who  loved  their  city  with  a  pas¬ 
sionate  devotion  and  whose  eyes  were  gladdened 
by  things  of  beauty,  reared  by  wealthy  patriots  to 
the  honour  of  God  or  His  Mother  or  Messer  San 
Giovanni  Battisto  or  to  others  of  the  Saints,  and 
whose  lives  were  lived  amid  all  that  was  most 
noble  in  architecture,  painting,  sculpture,  or  let¬ 
ters,  magnanimity  was  no  vulgar  display  of  un¬ 
justly  earned  wealth  but  an  instinctive  desire  to 
leave  their  country  the  more  splendid  for  their 
achievements. 

These  ideals  of  Florence  set  out  in  four  volumes 
of  S.  Antonino’s  Samma  Moralis,  put  into  complete 
activity  in  the  Greater  and  Lesser  Guilds,  and  lined 
in  stone  along  the  graceful  facade  of  Or  San 
Michele  are  commercial,  it  is  true,  but  clean  and 
religious  and  noble.  They  sum  up  a  chivalrous 
and  knightly  aspect  of  mercantile  adventure. 
They  spell  out  the  splendid  Chronicles  of  the  Ro¬ 
mance  of  Trade, 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

HIS  OTHER  LITERARY  WORK. 

Social  theories,  however,  were  only  one  portion 
of  S.  Antonino’s  literary  work.  Busy  as  his  life 
was,  and  full  of  manifold  cares  and  labours,  he 
managed  to  leave  behind  him  no  mean  record  of 
work  accomplished.  He  had  been  taught  little  at 
school,  still  he  had  learnt  a  great  deal  for  himself 
from  books  and  more  from  experience.  His  time 
however  was  seldom  his  own.  Hardly  had  he 
finished  his  noviciate,  than  the  burdens  of  office 
were  laid  on  him  and  they  grew  with  the  growth 
of  each  successive  appointment.  Priorships  needed 
much  of  his  attention,  his  Vicariate  over  the  Lom¬ 
bard  Congregation  entailed  “  journeyings  often,” 
his  superintending  of  the  building  of  S.  Marco 
meant  further  inroads  on  those  leisured  moments. 
To  all  these  succeeded  the  overwhelming  occupa¬ 
tions  of  the  Archiepiscopate,  with  its  religious  and 
State  duties  and  its  not  infrequent  embassies.  It 
is  therefore  with  feelings  of  wonder  that  we  look 
at  the  long  row  of  tomes,  which  he  has  left  us  as 
monuments  of  “  perpetual  industry.”  To  accom¬ 
plish  them  his  energy  was  enormous,  for  his  friend 
Castiglione  tells  us  that  after  Matins  were  over 
(i.e.  about  4  o’clock  in  the  morning)  until  9  a.m., 
the  Saint  was  wont  to  read  and  write,  study  and 
compose  his  works.  To  assist  the  labours  of  his 


8o 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


pen,  he  brought  an  astonishing  memory.  The  feat 
of  his  boyhood,  learning  by  heart  the  crabbed 
pages  of  the  dull  Corpus  Juris ,  seems  to  have  been 
no  isolated  fact,  but  (although  under  the  influence 
of  God’s  designs  for  him)  a  result  of  natural  en¬ 
dowment.  The  same  gift,  at  any  rate,  was  con¬ 
spicuous  throughout  his  life.  Parallel  with  this 
was  his  persistent  energy.  There  was  no  limit  to 
his  labour ;  and  as  the  frail  boy,  whose  delicate 
beauty  had  made  his  friends  and  superiors  fear  an 
early  decline  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  319),  grew  to  be 
venerable  in  years,  his  intelligence  also  increased 
from  strength  to  strength. 

But  there  is  a  particularly  personal  passage  in  the 
Prologue  of  the  Summa  Moralis  (pp.  3-4)  which 
gives  S.  Antonino’s  idea  of  his  own  individual 
genius.  Even  in  a  translation,  it  can  be  seen  to 
be  a  charming  page  of  genuine  literature.  After 
quoting  the  Scriptural  tribute  to  the  industry  of  the 
ant  (Prov.  vi.  6-8),  he  continues: 

“  And  I  betwixt  the  summer  and  autumn  of 
my  life,  deem  it  necessary  to  gather  up  my  harvest 
of  knowledge ;  lest  when  the  winter  of  my  age 
set  in,  I  perish  of  hunger.  For  old  age  is  fit  for 
little  work,  so  weary  grows  it  in  its  labours,  it 
stumbles  with  its  halting  memory  and  darkening 
sight,  and  has  but  little  time  to  turn  the  pages  of 
books.  So  already  feeling  the  tediousness  of 
things,  I  seek  to  shake  it  off  by  the  example  of  the 
ant,  tiny  animal  as  it  is,  but  wise  beyond  other’s 
wisdom.  For  ‘having  no  captain  or  master’ 
(Prov.  vi.;  7),  she  provides  for  herself  against  the 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


81 


winter ;  so  too  I  confess  that  I  have  had  no  master 
in  grammar,  except  when  I  was  a  little  boy — and 
he  was  a  sorry  teacher;  nor  in  any  other  study 
except  in  dialectics  and  that  was  a  very  much  in¬ 
terrupted  course  ;  nor  again  have  I  had  any  superior 
who  has  forced  me  to  study,  as  I  have  been  almost 
continually  myself  superior.  Still  eagerly  drawn 
by  the  sweetness  of  truth,  especially  of  the  moral 
sciences,  I  have  collected  from  among  all  my  read¬ 
ing  these  few  notes  which  have  especially  appealed 
to  me.  And  just  as  the  ant  gathers  up  for  its  food, 
not  what  it  considers  most  precious,  but  what  best 
suits  it;  so  I  have  given  the  go-by  to  all  those 
higher  problems  and  have  set  down  only  what  I 
consider  most  apt  for  the  purposes  of  preaching, 
hearing  confessions  and  counselling  souls,  not  as 
though  composing  some  vast  work,  but  rather  giv¬ 
ing  the  fruit  of  my  experience  to  my  best-loved 
friends  whose  genius  lies  not  in  metaphysics  or 
whose  books  are  few  or  whose  time  for  reading 
is  much  broken  up.  .  .  . 

“  Stern  is  the  travail  of  the  ant  in  its  struggle  for 
life;  no  less  stern,  as  I  think,  have  been  my  la¬ 
bours  throughout  long  years,  \interruptedly  spent 
on  other  business,  not  of  greater  value,  but  more 
pressing.  Thus  it  has  been  that  sometimes  for 
whole  months  and  years  together,  I  have  not  added 
one  single  stroke  to  this  book,  stealing  from  my 
occupations  a  few  moments  for  taking  food  or  for 
the  exigencies  of  my  office,  which  all-unworthy  I 
have  held  so  long,  or  for  the  befitting  business  of 
a  religious,  namely  prayer  and  contemplation.” 

G 


82 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


These  lines  do  really  give  a  fair  and  correct  view 
of  S.  Antonino’s  genius,  his  spirit  of  persistent 
labour.  To  this  must  be  added  his  possession  of 
an  amazing  clearness  of  expression.  This  does  not 
indeed  mean  that  the  originality  should  be  ex¬ 
cluded  from  his  gifts,  for  the  book  about  which  he 
speaks  here  with  so  much  diffidence  brought  about 
a  revolution  in  the  ecclesiastical  learning.  He  was 
the  first  author  to  separate  ethical  from  dogmatic 
theology.  The  Fathers  of  the  Church  seem  seldom 
to  have  concerned  themselves  with  more  than  pass¬ 
ing  references  to  moral  science.  S.  Ambrose  has 
indeed  a  work  on  usury,  but  it  purports  to  be  a 
commentary  on  Tobias,  just  as  S.  Gregory’s  notes 
on  Job  were  in  the  main  didactic  homilies.  S. 
Augustine  breaks  through  established  precedents 
in  composing  a  treatise  on  lying.  This  however 
was  almost  all  that  had  been  done.  Then  the  earlier 
scholastics  in  their  works  treated  of  moral  problems 
rather  as  parts  of  some  doctrinal  discussion  in 
which  they  lay  embedded.  Teachers  too  of  the 
type  of  Alexander  of  Hales  and  S.  Thomas  Aquinas 
gathered  together  what  they  could  find  relating 
to  the  study  of  ethics,  while  Canonists  like  S.  Ray- 
mund  Penafort  ranged  over  all  Christian  litera¬ 
ture  to  discover  legal  points  settled  by  Popes  or 
Councils  or  Bishops.  But  these  writers  treated 
morals  as  dependent  either  on  dogma  or  on  law. 
After  them  followed  the  mediaeval  lists  of  actual 
cases  of  conscience  with  the  solutions  to  them  ar¬ 
ranged  in  alphabetical  order  but  very  incompletely 
prepared. 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


33 


S.  Antonino  entered  into  their  labours.  The 
Corpus  Juris  and  the  Summa  Theologica  were  the 
basis  from  which  he  worked.  These  he  took  sever¬ 
ally  to  pieces  and  from  their  chosen  materials  built 
up  a  new  science,  the  science  of  morals.  His  aim 
was  to  establish  the  great  principles  of  moral 
action,  and  by  their  means  help  the  conscience  in 
its  decisions  of  everyday  life.  For  this  faculty  is 
a  thing  so  delicate,  so  subject  to  environment,  so 
susceptible  of  education,  that  experience  of  life, 
probity  of  character  and  prudence  of  judgment  are 
gravely  needed  in  the  direction  of  it.  All  these 
S.  Antonino  possessed.  To  him  came  ( Acta  S.S., 
p.  321),  in  all  their  difficulties,  the  citizens  of 
Florence,  merchants  to  consult  him  on  the  legiti¬ 
macy  of  certain  transactions,  bankers  on  the  limits 
of  usury,  guild-men  on  the  exact  amount  of  labour 
they  were  morally  bound  to  contribute,  mothers 
to  ask  his  advice  in  their  household  toils  and  on  the 
education  of  their  children,  priests  to  hear  his  in¬ 
terpretation  of  synodical  decrees  and  papal  pro¬ 
nouncements,  rulers  to  question  him  on  the  lawful¬ 
ness  of  taxation  and  the  fitting  adornment  of  the 
city.  It  was  not  so  much  that  his  knowledge  was 
particularly  extensive.  There  were  certainly  more 
learned  men  than  he  within  the  walls  of  Florence ; 
but  his  prudence  and  impartiality  of  judgment, 
once  a  case  was  proposed  to  him,  were  of  extra¬ 
ordinary  value.  Hence  he  got  the  name  of  An¬ 
tonino  the  Counsellor  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  321);  and 
from  his  court,  the  Pope  allowed  no  appeals  to 
Rome  (Ibid.,  p.  323;  Moro,  p.  58). 


84 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


His  method  in  the  Summa  is  to  give  the  ordinary 
view  of  moralists  on  the  subject  of  the  discussion. 
Where  however  there  had  been  great  divergence 
of  opinion,  he  breaks  off  into  an  historical  dis¬ 
quisition,  citing  passage  after  passage  from  the 
writings  of  previous  canonists  to  show  the  growth 
of  a  particular  attitude  or  the  reason  for  no  longer 
following  some  earlier  authoritative  decision.  Then 
he  gives  his  own  view,  or  where  he  sees  no  necessity 
for  that,  he  simply  leaves  the  problem  unsolved. 
If  however,  he  comes  to  a  definite  decision,  it  is 
done  in  no  arbitrary  way ;  he  gives  all  his  reasons, 
answers  objections,  and  then  dispassionately  goes 
on  to  the  next  point.  It  is  noticeable,  too,  that  he 
more  usually  inclines  to  the  less  severe  side.  But 
an  exception  to  this  gentleness  of  judgment  must 
be  made  in  the  matter  of  justice,  in  which  he  is 
exceedingly  rigorous.  Any  infringement  of 
another’s  right,  any  keeping  back  of  another’s  well- 
earned  wage,  any  scamping  of  honest  hard  work, 
any  extortionate  demand  for  usury  comes  in  for 
stern  criticism.  Very  little  injustice  passes  unre¬ 
buked. 

The  passages  from  the  Prologue  which  we  have 
quoted  some  pages  back,  speaks  of  this  work  as  very 
interruptedly  composed,  and  as  stretching  over 
several  years.  It  is  interesting  to  see  that  this 
statement  is  borne  out  by  little  local  touches  scat¬ 
tered  up  and  down  these  four  volumes.  Towards 
the  beginning  of  the  Third  Book  {Tit.  6,  cap.  3, 
5)  he  speaks  of  the  year  1448;  at  the  end  of  the 
same  volume  (31,  2,  8)  he  has  already  advanced 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


*5 


to  1449.  Again  in  the  Fourth  Book,  we  find  re¬ 
ference  to  the  year  1455  (8,  1,  4);  and  the  last 
treatise  can  only  have  been  finished  at  the  end  of 
his  long  life. 

To  these  four  volumes  of  his  Suimna  M oralis 
must  be  added  a  fifth,  which  however  in  actual 
fact  was  really  written  before  the  others.  It  is 
his  Chronicle  or  Summa  Historialis,  meant  to  round 
off  his  study  of  ethics  by  a  full  plan  of  all  Church 
history.  Somewhat  disordered,  to  our  more 
modern  concept  of  historical  literature,  it  is  a  vast 
repertorium  of  biographical  notices  arranged  much 
on  the  same  lines  as  those  amazing  works  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  by  Vincent  de  Beauvais  and 
others,  in  which  every  sort  of  fact  is  collected 
and  recorded.  Legends  of  the  Saints,  remarks  on 
natural  phenomena,  legal  decisions,  theological  dis¬ 
cussions  are  thrown  down  into  this  sea  of  know¬ 
ledge.  The  result  is  much  more  like  an  encyclo¬ 
paedia  than  an  ordered  history.  The  parts  of  it 
that  deal  with  early  history,  though  no  doubt  to 
S.  Antonino  they  appeared  to  be  of  most  import¬ 
ance,  are  to  us  of  little  value.  He  accepts  more 
or  less  credulously  whatever  his  predecessors  be¬ 
queathed  to  him ;  in  reality  he  could  do  little  else, 
for  he  had  none  of  that  critical  apparatus  whigh 
enables  us  to  sift  out  the  true  from  the  false.  But 
when  he  comes  down  to  his  own  time,  much  of  his 
information  is  first-hand  and  valuable.  He  had 
seen  a  good  deal  of  Italy,  had  mixed  with  the  Papal 
Court,  had  sat  in  the  Council  of  Florence  and  had 
mingled  with  the  throng  of  various  nationalities 


86 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


that  met  in  the  presence-chamber  of  Latin  Pope 
and  Grecian  Patriarch.  To  Emperors  both  of  East 
and  West  he  had  spoken,  though  he  had  but  a  poor 
opinion  of  either.  As  a  friend  of  Cosimo  he  had 
opportunities  of  grasping  the  threads  of  European 
diplomacy;  and  through  Fra  Angelico  must  have 
seen  at  S.  Marco’s  the  artistic  leaders  of  Florence 
at  the  greatest  period  of  her  history.  Consequently 
his  Chronicle  as  it  nears  his  own  day  grows  fuller 
and  more  interesting.  It  is  enlivened  occasionally 
by  gossip,  and,  considering  the  formal  manners 
of  that  time,  is  refreshingly  free  and  independent. 
It  is  this  mixture  of  facts  in  more  or  less  disorder, 
half  legendary  and  half  critical,  humorous  and 
redolent  of  piety,  that  makes  the  volume  one  of  the 
most  fascinating  of  mediaeval  treatises.  S.  An- 
tonino  has  none  of  the  quaintness  of  Villani  or  the 
freshness  of  Morelli,  but  the  evident  desire  on  his 
part  to  tell  the  whole  truth  and  his  great  wealth 
of  anecdote  make  his  book  most  pleasant  reading. 

The  other  works  of  the  Saint  consist  of  treatises 
on  moral 1  questions,  or  else  pious  instructions  for 
priests,  or  letters  written  to  ladies  2 * * 5  for  the  direction 
of  their  conscience.  Some  are  in  Latin,  some  in 
Italian,  but  it  would  be  tedious  to  examine  each  in 

1  He  composed  also  a  catechism  for  children,  printed  in 

Venice  1493.  It  is  the  oldest,  we  are  told,  of  all  catechisms, 

taking  the  word  in  its  strictest  sense  (Braunsberger,  S.J., 

Stimmen  aus  Maria  Laach,  lxxxix.  2.  p.  174),  and  has  been 
republished  lately  (Venturi,  Storia  della  Compagnia  di  Gesu 
in  Italia,  I.  pp.  277 — 281,  Milan,  1910). 

5  e.g.  his  fascinating  letter  to  Diodata  degli  Adimari  on 
the  death  of  her  little  boy  ( Letlere  xv.  pp.  149 — 154). 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


S; 


turn.  They  contain  little  that  adds  to  our  know¬ 
ledge  of  his  character,  though  here  and  there  a  fact 
may  be  gleaned  from  them.  For  instance  in  the 
Conclusiones  et  Decisiones  in  fore  Conscientioe ,  we 
find  that  these  were  written  in  answer  to  certain 
questions  put  by  Dominic  of  Catalonia  and  were 
composed  during  the  pontificate  of  Eugenius  IV. 
when  our  Saint  was  not  yet  Archbishop.  He  ex¬ 
cuses  himself  for  the  unfinished  state  of  the  notes 
by  saying  that  they  were  scribbled  off  while  he  was 
at  the  Baths  during  some  time  of  illness  and  had 
no  books  at  hand. 

Into  the  great  discussion,  then  beginning  to  rend 
all  Christendom,  as  to  the  educational  value  of  the 
Classics,  S.  Antonino  does  not  deliberately  enter. 
As  a  disciple  of  Fra  Giovanni  Dominici,  his  face 
had  been  set  against  all  pagan  authors ;  but  he 
loved  them  too  much  himself  to  have  the  heart  to 
exile  them  for  ever  from  life.  His  own  devotion 
to  Plato  almost  carried  him  away,  for  the  fascina¬ 
tion  that  author  possessed  for  him  was  so  great, 
that  he  had  to  stop  and  read  through  Aquinas’ 
Summa  contra  Gentiles  (S.  Thomas’  defence  of 
Christianity  against  paganism)  before  he  dared 
continue  the  Dialogues. 

With  that  marked  prudence  which  stamps  his 
every  page,  he  thus  sums  up  his  own  opinion  of 
the  ancient  authors:  “One  has  no  right,  simply 
because  these  poets  and  orators  were  men  of  vicious 
lives,  to  scorn  whatever  there  is  in  their  writings 
of  truth  and  usefulness.  Truth  wherever  found  can 
be  from  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  alone,  even  if  the 


B8  S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


teachers  of  it  have  not  the  same  Spirit  within  their 
hearts  by  saving  grace  ”  (I.  i,  4,  iv.  p.  37). 

As  a  critic,  a  moralist,  an  historian  and  a 
preacher,  he  had  few  gifts  of  eloquence.  But  his 
sympathy  with  all  distress  is  so  keen,  and  his  judg¬ 
ment  so  sound  and  balanced  in  such  perfect  poise, 
that  his  every  word  is  a  word  of  wisdom. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


HIS  CHARACTER. 

Now  that  the  events  of  the  life  of  S.  Antonino 
have  been  set  out,  at  least  in  some  detail,  it  will 
be  possible  to  consider  the  Saint  himself.  For 
although  what  he  was  is  infinitely  of  more  account 
both  to  himself  and  to  us  than  what  he  did,  we  have 
no  means  of  judging  his  character  until  we  have 
first  studied  its  outward  expression  in  the  works  of 
head,  hand,  and  heart.  We  must  pass  along  the 
cloister,  and  up  through  the  stately  nave  before  we 
dare  venture  into  the  locked  shrine  and  peer  behind 
the  veil. 

Fortunately  his  biographers  have  given  us  pass¬ 
ing  glimpses  of  the  man  as  they  knew  him;  and 
there  is  also  something  to  be  found  in  the  heaped- 
up  miracles  and  acts  of  heroic  sanctity  which  link 
up  the  long  Process  of  Canonization.  His  appear¬ 
ance  as  a  boy  is  repeatedly  described,  but  without 
any  definite  details.  A  slight  frail  figure,  rather 
delicate  physique,  an  almost  girlish  beauty  is  the 
sole  picture  which  these  descriptions  can  call  up. 
The  later  non-contemporary  authors  speak  of  his 
short  stature,  apparently  basing  their  statements 
on  the  diminutive  form  “  Antonino.”  But  beyond 
the  fact  that  he  was  not  robust-looking,  there  is 
no  evidence  at  all  to  prove  him  to  have  been  un- 


9° 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


dersized.  As  a  matter  of  actual  history,  when  the 
coffin  was  opened  by  Cardinal  Alessandro  dei 
Medici  at  nightfall  on  May  7th,  1589,  the  body 
was  measured,  and  the  sworn  evidence  of  eye-wit¬ 
nesses  reported  by  a  Notary  Public  gives  the  length 
as  “  2f  Braccia,”  1  equal  in  English  measurement 
to  about  5  ft.  5  in. — quite  average  height.  More¬ 
over,  as  we  have  already  suggested,  the  pet  name 
of  Antonino  is  perfectly  explainable  on  grounds 
of  affection  and  popularity. 

It  is  interesting  to  read  that  when  the  Cardinal 
removed  the  lid  of  the  coffin  and  gazed  on  the 
body  that  had  laid  undisturbed  for  one  hundred 
and  thirty  years,  he  recognised  the  face  from  the 
accurate  portraits  that  then  existed  in  Florence 
and  were  well-known  in  the  city.  This  is  fortunate 
testimony,  for  we  can  be  certain  that  the  painting 
by  Fra  Bartolomeo,  taken  from  the  death-mask, 
and  the  terra-cotta  bust,  both  at  S.  Marco’s,  repre¬ 
sent  faithfully  the  features  of  the  Saint.2 

His  temperament  seems  to  have  been  naturally 
phlegmatic.  Pie  hints  as  much  himself,  for  he 
quotes  with  approval  a  passage  from  the  works  of 
Albertus  Magnus  in  which  that  learned  psychologist 
briefly  notes  how  different  branches  of  knowledge 
attract  different  characters :  “  The  optimist  takes 

1  A  braccio  in  Florence,  for  it  differed  considerably  in 
each  of  the  great  Italian  cities,  was  equal  to  .5836  of  a 
metre. 

1  As  for  the  much-discussed  portrait  of  the  Saint  in  the 
famous  “Crucifixion”  of  Fra  Angelico,  compare  the  life  of 
that  artist  by  Langton  Douglas,  pp.  89 — 90,  n.  iii.  London. 
1902. 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


91 


to  natural  science,  the  pessimist  to  poetry,  the 
hasty-tempered  to  mathematics  and  metaphysics, 
and  the  phlegmatic  to  the  moral  sciences  ”  (I.  i, 
6,  i.  p.  49),  where  he  is  evidently  alluding  to  him¬ 
self.  But  even  apart  from  this,  his  biograohers 
speak  of  his  extraordinary  composure  of  counten¬ 
ance  which  nothing  could  disturb  (Ser-U  berti,  p. 
330,  etc.). 

A  story  is  told  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  345),  which  exem¬ 
plifies  his  calm  manner  even  in  rebuke.  One  day 
a  citizen  of  Florence  brought  to  the  Archbishop 
a  dish  of  apples.  In  gratitude  the  Saint  made 
answer  by  invoking  on  him  God’s  blessing — Dio 
tel  ??ieriti.  The  man  evidently  thought  such  pious 
talk  to  be  a  very  inadequate  reward  and  showed 
his  feelings  by  leaving  the  palace  with  very  disap¬ 
pointed  looks.  At  once  the  Saint  saw  what  was 
amiss  and  recalled  his  benefactor.  Scales  were 
sent  for,  and  on  a  scrap  of  parchment  were  written 
the  words  of  blessing.  In  the  one  balance  were 
put  the  apples,  in  the  other  the  scroll.  Down  went 
the  paper,  out-weighing  even  the  kindly  gift  of 
fruit.  The  gentle  miracle  taught  lessons  that  no 
harsh  reproof  could  have  so  speedily  instilled. 
Even  after  all  these  years  the  parable  has  its  use 
and  meaning. 

In  his  books,  too,  can  be  traced  the  same  un¬ 
emotional  temperament,  for,  though  enlivened  by 
gleams  of  quiet  humour,  they  are  never  written 
with  any  rhetorical  or  turgid  appeals  to  sentiment. 
Moreover,  partly  by  reason  of  his  stupendous 
memory  and  partly  by  reason  of  this  same  phleg- 


92 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


matic  turn  of  mind,  he  was  burdened  with  the 
desire  of  perpetual  accuracy.  At  table,  when  the 
reading  went  on,  no  falsely-pronounced  word  or 
quantity,  no  mistaken  date  ever  passed  uncorrected 
{Acta  S.S.,  p.  321);  and  in  the  ceremonies  in 
Church  and  at  the  great  State  functions,  he  was 
never  at  fault,  never  broke  any  of  the  prescribed 
rubrics  ( Ibid .,  p.  323).  This  should  not  convey 
the  impression  that  he  was  at  all  pompous  in  his 
dealings  with  others :  witness  one  of  his  letters 
(. Lettere  xv.,  p.  154):  “When  you  write  to  me 
please  leave  out  all  recommendations  and  rever¬ 
ences  and  affections  and  say  what  you  want,  and 
I’ll  answer  you  without  any  preambles.” 

This  same  even  character  it  was  that  made  him 
the  best  of  counsellors  in  any  trouble  and  the  clear¬ 
est  disentangler  of  twisted  difficulties.  Nothing 
disturbed  his  judgment,  nothing  prejudiced  him, 
nothing  blinded  him  to  the  merits  of  any  case. 
He  became  the  embodiment  of  that  most  uncommon 
and  therefore  most  terrifying  of  gifts,  common 
sense.  Whatever  he  took  up,  on  whatever  he  pro¬ 
nounced  judgment,  the  absolute  balance  of  truth 
was  clearly  established.  We  may  dread  to  meet 
such  accurate  and  impartial  conversationalists, 
because  we  are  in  the  main  so  inaccurate  and  slip¬ 
shod  ourselves ;  but  once  encountered  they  are  the 
most  steadying  and  fascinating  of  companions. 

S.  Antonino,  with  his  piercing  power  of  observ¬ 
ing  character,  notes  that  such  a  temperament  as  his 
had  many  advantages,  for  it  tends  of  its  own  nature 
to  be  patient  and  modest.  And  that  he  certainly 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


93 


was.  But  he  also  admits  quite  frankly  that  it 
brings  with  it  other  disadvantages,  as  for  example 
a  constitutional  inclination  towards  laziness  and 
negligence  ( Summa  M oralis,  I.  I,  6,  i.  p.  50). 
In  the  light  of  the  psychological  observation  of  S. 
Thomas  Aquinas  that  it  is  just  his  weaknesses  that 
a  man  of  character  strengthens,  it  is  startling  to  see 
how  this  negligence  and  laziness,  the  seeds  of  which 
S.  Antonino  discovered  in  his  own  heart,  were  the 
very  last  imperfections  to  which  strangers  were  at 
all  likely  to  have  supposed  him  subject.  How  per¬ 
sistent  must  have  been  the  struggle  by  which  the 
Saint  became  so  admirable  an  example  of  untiring 
energy  and  painstaking  thoroughness !  He  adds 
also  that  a  man  of  his  temperament  was  naturally 
peaceful  and  therefore  not  infrequently  subject  to 
fears.  From  his  life  such  a  weakness  had  been 
banished  early.  His  books  and  sermons  are  aston¬ 
ishingly  full  of  candour  and  fearlessness.  He  re¬ 
bukes  rich  and  poor,  Cosimo  and  the  Magistrates 
(. Moro ,  p.  61),  priests,  merchants,  rebels,  when¬ 
ever  he  thinks  that  blame  ought  to  be  laid  by 
one  in  his  pastoral  office.  We  read  also  of 
how  he  fought  the  Signory  or  Government  of 
the  city,  and  forced  them  to  obey  the  laws  and 
respect  the  liberties  of  Florence.  Especially  do 
we  find  him  insisting  on  free  and  unhampered 
elections  and  on  the  correct  counting  of  the 
white  and  black  beans  which  were  used  in 
ballotting  ( V  espasiano  da  Bis  tied,  pp.  21-22;  Acta 
S.S. ,  p.  342).  On  one  occasion  when  they  threat¬ 
ened  to  depose  him  from  his  Archbishopric,  he 


94 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


smilingly  pulled  out  from  his  pocket  the  key  of  his 
beloved  cell  in  S.  Marco,  and  told  them  he  was 
only  too  anxious  to  be  back  in  his  old  home.  On 
another,  he  actually  left  his  palace  and  went  into 
the  cloister,  till  Cosimo  yielded  and  hurried  off 
to  bring  him  back  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  344). 

His  energy  moreover  is  written  large  in  all  his 
works.  The  Summa  M oralis  is  an  evident  monu¬ 
ment,  composed  as  it  w^as  during  many  years  of 
his  life,  in  odd  moments  snatched  from  his  official 
duties.  The  persistent  continuance  of  such  a 
labour  under  such  difficulties  is  a  remarkable 
tribute  to  industry.  None  but  those  who  have  tried 
to  write  in  broken  snatches  of  time,  can  tell  how  re¬ 
pulsive  such  toil  becomes.  On  each  occasion  the 
thread  has  again  to  be  taken  up,  the  design  of 
the  work  revised,  the  same  tints  and  colours 
matched;  else  the  result  will  bear  more  resem¬ 
blance  to  a  patch- work  quilt  than  to  clearly- pic¬ 
tured  tapestry.  But  it  was  not  merely  a  question 
of  interrupted  labour,  an  added  obstruction  was 
that  almost  the  only  time  he  had  for  writing  was 
in  the  early  morning  when  his  whole  nature  called 
out  for  rest.  He  worked  late  into  the  night.  “  I 
have  no  more  paper  or  light,  and  Francis  is  calling 
for  this,  so  I  end  ”  is  the  close  of  one  of  his  letters 
(. Lettere  viii.,  p.  1  1 6) ;  and  another  shows  his 
speed  and  crowded  hours:  “  In  haste,  without  re¬ 
reading.  I  don’t  know  if  I  have  missed  out  any 
words”  ( Lettere  xv.,  p.  154).  Yet  there  he  sat 
from  4  a.m.  to  9,  working  at  his  sermons,  his 
reading,  and  his  books.  Canon  Castiglione  often 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


95 


wondered  how  his  Archbishop  could  keep  up  his 
enthusiasm  for  study  and  was  puzzled  to  account 
for  the  wakeful  hours  of  mental  labour  when  his 
eyes  must  have  been  almost  closing  from  sheer 
want  of  sleep.  The  marvel  remained  unsolved, 
save  as  a  fiercely  determined  act  of  will.  But  from 
time  to  time  sleep  would  triumph,  and  the  Saint 
would  turn  his  chair  round  and  tilt  it  up  against 
the  wall,  and  in  that  boyish  attitude  get  what  re¬ 
freshing  sleep  he  could  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  332). 

Boyish  indeed  he  always  remained  to  the  end, 
with  all  a  boy’s  humour  and  a  boy’s  gravity.  His 
too  was  the  boy’s  passionate  purity,  for  he  had 
“  passed  by  the  ambush  of  young  days.”  His  let¬ 
ters  to  his  friends  and  relations,  especially  the  one 
written  to  the  Prior  and  friars  of  Pistoja  on  the 
death  of  his  old  novice-master,  Bl.  Lawrence  of 
Rippafratta  ( Letter e  xxiv.,  pp.  198-202),  reveal 
his  simplicity  and  candour,  and  his  singular  fresh¬ 
ness  of  mind.  One  friend  noted  his  “  childlike 
soul  ” ;  another  remarked  that  even  till  his  death 
he  remained  “  like  a  boy  of  fifteen.” 

His  last  great  natural  gift  was  the  most  blessed 
of  God’s  prerogatives,  the  gift  of  making  friends. 
His  loveableness  can  be  traced  from  the  early  days 
when  the  children  with  whom  he  played  and  the 
neighbours  called  him  simply  “  little  Antony.”  It 
shows  when  he  climbed  the  hill  of  Fiesole  and 
the  Bl.  Giovanni  Dominici  looking  on  him  loved 
him.  It  knit  him  in  bonds  of  an  almost  school¬ 
boy  friendship  with  Fra  Angelico  whose  eye  for 
angelic  loveliness  could  find  in  S.  Antonino  a 


96 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


human  reflexion  of  what  his  soul  had  seen  in  its 

» 

joyous  v/anderings  through  the  realm's  of  fancy. 
Then  as  the  will  of  his  brethren  pushed  him  into 
offices  of  responsibility,  we  find  him  regarded  with 
enthusiastic  reverence.  The  younger  friars  looked 
up  to  him,  captivated  by  his  gentle  kindness,  and 
no  less  by  the  astonishing  breadth  of  mind  which 
his  intelligence  displayed;  for  nothing  so  charms 
young  age  as  to  find  old  age  encouraging  and 
tolerant.  Nor  was  the  love  merely  one-sided. 
Castiglione  tells  how  he,  who  lived  for  eight  years 
in  S.  Antonino’s  closest  company,  was  cared  for 
by  the  Archbishop  with  all  the  watchfulness  of 
affection ;  he  notes  too  how  when  Mark,  the  other  of 
the  Saint’s  devoted  secretaries,  died,  S.  Antonino, 
ageing  and  tremulous,  completely  broke  down. 
“  The  staff  of  my  life  had  failed  me  ”  was  all  that 
he  could  say  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  319).  Cosimo  too 
despite  many  differences  of  ideas  and  ideals,  kept 
his  cell  in  S.  Marco,  opposite  to  the  Archbishop’s 
and  used  to  come  and  stay  for  days  and  talk  as 
only  friends  talk.  Even  Eugenius  IV.,  hard, 
strong,  and  crafty,  when  he  felt  the  approach  of 
death  ( Ibid .,  p.  323)  sent  for  his  Archbishop  of 
Florence  that  from  his  lips  might  come  the  absolv¬ 
ing  words,  and  from  his  hands  the  sealing  of  holy 
oil,  and  from  his  prayers  the  strengthening  comfort 
needed  on  that  last  long  journey. 

The  other  little  traits  in  his  character  told  by  his 
biographers  fill  in  the  picture.  We  learn  how  he 
always  refused  stole-fees  (I did.,  p.  322),  howT  as 
Archbishop  he  began  to  preach  in  each  church  in 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


97 


turn  till  lie  had  provoked  the  parish  priests  to  take 
up  sermons  seriously  themselves  and  deliver  them 
well  (p.  322),  how  when  tired  he  would  read  his 
Breviary,  saying  daily,  besides  the  prescribed  por¬ 
tions,  the  seven  Penitential  Psalms,  the  Office  of 
Our  Lady,  and,  twice  a  week,  the  whole  office  of 
the  dead.  It  was  again  his  phenomenal  memory 
coming  to  his  help,  for  all  the  psalms  he  said  by 
heart.  He  found  it  a  rest  to  recite  his  Office,  and 
'thus  by  the  repetition  of  familiar  words  to  disen¬ 
gage  his  mind  from  the  cares  of  his  high  charge 
and  gradually  push  his  consciousness  down  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  endless  depths  of  God,  or  make 
it  climb  higher  and  higher  alotig  the  peaks  of 
thought  till  all  the  inrushes  of  life  and  movement 
failed,  and  he  found  himself  amidst  the  topmost 
summits  of  being,  in  the  stillness  and  the  silence, 
where  no  distraction  is  but  God  only.  This  is  the 
character  portrayed  by  his  biographers,  showing 
clearly  in  the  authentic  paintings  of  him.  We  see 
the  shrewd,  humorous  mouth,  the  forceful  lips, 
the  straight  determined  nose,  the  gentle  eyes  look¬ 
ing  out  beyond  this  beautiful  landscape  of  tangible 
creation  to  the  ideal  and  uttermost  beauty  towards 
which  his  whole  life  marched.  No  doubt  he  had 
his  failings  of  act  and  character.  But  they  are 
difficult  to  discern  in  the  blaze  of  all  his  greatness. 
Perhaps  his  unemotional  temperament  made  him  at 
times  unsympathetic,  perhaps  his  love  of  accuracy 
made  him  impatient  of  others’  incompleteness,  per¬ 
haps  even  his  humour  jarred  at  times  on  a  sad  and 
listless  world. 

H 


98  S.  ANTONINO  AND  MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 

But  no  echo  of  discord  sounds  through  the  ages. 
He  appears  only  as  a  great  “  arm-fellow  of  God,” 
in  whose  soul  the  Divine  Beauty  finds  Narcissus¬ 
like  the  reflexion  of  Itself,  whose  life  and  character 
open  Heaven’s  gates  to  Earth,  and  stand  a 

“  Swinging-wicket,  set 
Between 

The  Unseen  and  the  Seen.” 


CHAPTER  X. 


DEATH  AND  AFTER. 

With  all  his  multiplied  labours,  S.  Antonino  had 
strained  to  breaking-point  the  bond  between  soul 
and  body.  The  golden  bowl,  worn  so  fine,  was 
breaking ;  the  silver  cord,  stretched  against  such 
resistance,  was  fast  loosening.  The  restless,  wan¬ 
dering,  wavering  stranger,  that  had  dwelt  so  long 
in  its  fleshly  hostel,  was  anxious  to  be  gone  and 
find  its  rest  at  last  in  the  house  of  its  eternity. 
“  But  man,”  says  the  Saint,  “  whose  memory  is 
good  and  who  has  realized  his  life’s  brief  span, 
grows  thereby  more  full  of  energy  as  his  years 
heap  up  ”  ( Summa  M oralis,  I.  2,  4,  i.  p.  108). 

At  the  end  of  April,  1459,  he  caught  a  lingering 
fever  which  the  physicians  of  that  date  called 
phlegmatic  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  326),  apparently  tuber¬ 
culosis  or  some  inflammatory  disease  of  the  upper 
air-passages.  He  had  always  been  threatened  with 
consumption  (p.  319),  and  this  added  to  his 
weakened  condition  and  his  old  age  brought  him 
very  low.  “  Three  score  and  ten  ”  he  murmured 
“  are  the  years  of  man  ”  ( Ibid .,  p.  327).  He  had 
passed  his  seventieth  birthday. 

On  May  1st,  the  feast  of  SS.  Philip  and  James, 
just  before  twilight  surrounded  by  the  friars  of 
S.  Marco,  he  received  Extreme  Unction.  When 
the  administration  of  the  Sacrament  was  over,  the 
brethren  began  to  recite  Matins.  As  they  com- 


IOO 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


menced  Lauds,  he  intoned  the  Deus  in  adjutorium, 
“  O  God  come  to  my  assistance,”  with  great  de¬ 
votion.  After  that  came  for  the  most  part  only 
broken  phrases,  for  consciousness  was  slowly  ebb¬ 
ing.  The  old  memory  however  lingered,  and  the 
listening,  anxious  throng  in  his  bed-chamber  caught 
the  familiar  sayings  which  had  never  been  long 
absent  from  his  lips:  “  to  serve  God  is  to  reign  ” 
and  that  cry  to  his  mother :  “  Holy  and  unsullied 
Maidenhood,  how  fitly  to  praise  thee,  I  know  not.” 
The  tremulous  voice  was  heard  from  time  to  time 
joining  in  the  Divine  Office,  then,  definitely  and 
clearly,  reciting  the  last  Psalm  of  Lauds,  always 
his  favourite:  “Praise  ye  the  Lord  in  His  Holy 
places.  Praise  ye  Him  in  the  firmament  of  His 
Power  ”  (Ps.  i  50).  As  this  ended,  the  Psalter  was 
begun. 

He  lay  silent — they  thought  unconscious.  But 
in  the  24th  Psalm,  he  broke  in  and  took  up  the 
verse  “  Towards  the  Lord  are  my  eyes  alway,  for 
my  feet  shall  He  pluck  from  the  snare.”  These 
words  of  patience  and  hope,  of  contrition,  faith  and 
love  were  the  last  that  crossed  his  lips.  Early  next 
morning,  May  2nd,  the  Eve  of  the  Ascension,  in 
kissing  the  figure  of  the  Crucified,  the  old  man 
died. 

A  touching  proof  of  where  lay  the  saintly  Arch¬ 
bishop’s  heart  was  shown  when  his  will  was  dis¬ 
closed.  He  left  his  body  to  the  friars  of  S.  Marco 
and  all  the  moneys  to  be  found  in  his  palace  to 
be  distributed  to  the  poor.  After  a  prolonged 
search,  only  four  ducats  were  discovered,  so  faith- 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


IOI 


1 

ful  had  he  been  to  the  spirit  of  his  Master.  But 
despite  this  scanty  legacy,  right  along  the  route 
that  led  from  the  Duomo  to  S.  Marco,  down  the 
little  street  in  which  he  had  been  born,  crowded 
the  thronging  people  of  Florence.  For  the  last 
time  they  saw  their  holy  pastor  go  by,  carried  to 
his  resting-place  by  the  hands  of  six  Bishops.  In 
the  pelting  rain  of  that  May  morning,  the  huddled 
poor  knelt,  sobbing  and  praying,  now  for  him,  now 
to  him.  It  was  a  wondrous  sight,  for  Pope  Pius 
II.,  the  brilliant,  learned,  erring  Pontiff  of  the 
Renaissance  who  happened  to  be  in  the  city,  fol¬ 
lowed  in  the  sad  cortege.  His  presence  showed 
how,  apart  as  the  two  had  been  in  temperament, 
pursuits,  and  sympathies,  they  had  yet  worked  to¬ 
gether  for  the  reform  and  uplifting  of  the  Church. 
The  Cardinal  of  Venice,  a  nephew  of  Eugenius  IV., 
one  of  the  Saint’s  best  friends,  celebrated  the  Re¬ 
quiem  Mass  and  blessed  the  narrow  grave.  Over 
the  sacred  remains  was  placed  a  heavy  stone.  A 
far  more  crushing  load  saddened  the  hearts  of  the 
Florentine  poor,  for  he,  their  defender,  their  pa¬ 
tron,  their  father,  whose  time  and  counsel  and 
strength  had  been  utterly  spent  for  them,  was  no 
more  to  walk  among  them.  Miracles  had  he 
wrought  unnumbered;  miracles  too  were  his  very 
bones  to  work,  and  the  long  unending  tale  of  them 
can  be  read  in  the  Process  of  Canonization.  The 
tomb  at  once  became  a  shrine.  Waxen  and  wooden 
images  of  healed  and  restored  limbs  became  so 
numerous  that  they  had  to  be  perpetually  removed 
to  make  room  for  others.  It  was  only  when  the 


102 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


violent  sack  of  the  monastic  buildings  which  pre¬ 
ceded  the  murder  of  another  great  Dominican  Prior 
of  S.  Marco,  Girolamo  Savonarola,  had  polluted 
the  Church  and  preparations  were  being  made  for 
cleaning  it  out  thoroughly,  that  all  these  ex-voto 
offerings  were  completely  swept  away  (p.  354). 

Into  the  story,  necessarily  monotonous,  of  these 
supernatural  doings,  we  shall  not  enter.  They  are 
the  same  and  must  be  the  same  in  the  history  of 
every  Saint.  And  after  all,  as  said  Fr.  Santez, 
O.P.,  a  well-loved  disciple  of  the  Archbishop, 
“  Why  recount  his  miracles?  None  of  them,  nor 
all  of  them,  were  ever  so  marvellous  as  his  own 
blessed  character.”  Indeed  it  is  his  character  it¬ 
self  that  wrought  one  astonishing  work,  which  for 
its  charm,  its  comfort,  and  its  note  of  hopefulness 
shall  here  be  set  down. 

When  Prior  of  S.  Marco,  S.  Antonino  had  re¬ 
ceived  to  the  Dominican  habit  a  certain  Pied¬ 
montese,  to  whom  he  gave  his  own  name  of  Antony. 
This  young  man  as  a  priest  was  captured  by  pirates 
and  carried  off  to  Tunis.  A  certain  vanity  that 
this  friar  had  about  his  preaching,  had  always  been 
a  matter  of  anxiety  to  the  Saint,  but  probably  even 
he  had  not  suspected  how  empty  of  God  the  priest’s 
soul  had  become.  After  a  brief  imprisonment,  he 
apostatised  to  Mahomedanism  and  broke  through 
his  priestly  vows.  When  some  months  had  been 
spent  in  sin,  he  heard  of  S.  Antonino’s  death. 
Rumour,  through  some  Genoese  merchants,  brought 
stories  of  the  Saint’s  kindness  and  gentleness ;  and 
all  the  old  world  came  back  again  to  the  hapless 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


103 


man’s  remembrance.  He  thought  of  his  high 
ideals,  nurtured  by  the  calm  wisdom  of  his  Prior, 
then  of  his  fall  and  sullied  innocence.  Moved  to 
sorrow  by  the  terrible  contrast,  he  repented  of  his 
sin,  publicly  recanted  his  apostasy,  and  atoned  for 
his  wasted  life  by  a  martyr’s  death.  Under  the 
name  of  Bl.  Antony  Neyrot  he  is  honoured  now  as 
a  saint  by  his  Dominican  brethren  (having  been 
beatified  by  Pope  Clement  XIII.),  and  his  feast  is 
kept  on  April  10th. 

One  other  miracle  must  be  told  which  calls  back 
another  of  the  Saint’s  own  brethren.  Two  old 
ladies  of  Naples  relate  in  the  Process  of  Canoniza¬ 
tion,  how,  when  S.  Antonino  left  Naples  after  his 
Priorship  there,  he  gave  them  “  a  tiny  sculptured 
figure  of  Death  and  a  small  painting  by  the  hand 
of  a  certain  devout  friar,  John  the  Artist,  to  which 
they  had  recourse,  in  temptation  to  the  Death,  in 
trouble  to  the  painting.  And  as  often  as  they 
thus  prayed,  in  temptation  and  in  trouble  alike, 
they  felt  God’s  help  ”  ( Acta  S.S.,  p.  347).  The 
interest  in  this  story  lies  in  the  identification  of 
Friar  John  the  Artist.  No  life  of  him  mentions  this 
miracle,  no  historian  of  him  seems  to  have  noticed 
this  painting,  yet  to  whom  else  can  it  refer  than 
Giovanni  di  Vecchio,  artist,  saint,  and  friend  of 
S.  Antonino,  whom  all  the  world  reveres  as  Fra 
Angelico?  Surely  too  it  is  fitting  that  the  work 
of  one,  whose  whole  spirit  was  alive  with  childlike 
joy  and  peace,  should  bring  to  anxious,  troubled 
hearts  the  rest  and  comfort  of  God. 

It  was  under  a  Medici  Pope,  Leo  X.,  that  the 


io4 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


testimony  of  witnesses  for  the  Archbishop’s  heroic 
sanctity  began  to  be  taken.  Under  the  succeeding 
Pontiff,  Adrian  VI.,  it  was  completed;  and  S.  An- 
tonino  was  solemnly  enrolled  in  the  Calendar  of 
the  Saints  (May  31st,  1522).  But  it  was  not  till 
the  next  year  (November  26th,  1523),  as  Adrian 
died  after  a  reign  of  only  a  few  months,  that  the 
Bull  of  Canonization  was  promulgated  by  Clement 
VII.,  curiously  enough  another  Medici. 

The  last  notice  of  our  Saint  comes  in  the  year 
1589.  A  new  and  more  worthy  shrine  had  been 
prepared  in  a  chapel  of  S.  Marco,  reared  by  the 
generosity  of  two  brothers  of  the  noble  house  of 
the  Salviati.  To  this  the  sacred  body  was  to  be 
translated.  After  diligently  learning  from  the 
older  friars  where,  according  to  tradition,  lay  the 
relics  of  the  Archbishop,  Cardinal  Alessandro  dei 
Medici  (later  Pope  Leo  XI.)  began  at  nightfall. 
May  7th,  1589,  the  identifying  of  the  body.  In 
the  presence  of  the  Salviati,  the  Provincial  of  Tus¬ 
cany,  the  Prior  and  many  of  the  friars,  he  had  the 
coffin  lifted  out  and  placed  where  all  might  see  it. 
Then  reverently  the  lid  was  taken  off  and  all  gazed 
on  the  form  that  had  lain  undisturbed  for  one 
hundred  and  thirty  years.  The  face  was  perfectly 
recognisable.  He  was  clothed  simply  in  the  Do¬ 
minican  habit,  with  no  emblem  of  the  episcopate, 
save  for  the  pallium  that  marked  out  his  jurisdic¬ 
tion  as  received  from  the  See  of  Rome.  The  habit 
was  slightly  soiled.  The  limbs  were  intact,  though, 
except  for  the  face  which  was  almost  perfect,  the 
bones  and  muscles  were  seemingly  but  barely 


MEDIEVAL  ECONOMICS 


105 


covered  by  the  tightly-stretched  skin.  Even  the 
number  of  the  teeth  is  set  down  in  the  detailed 
description  left  by  the  Notary  Public. 

The  next  day,  May  8th,  took  place  the  transla¬ 
tion  of  the  relics  to  the  new  shrine.  Besides  Car¬ 
dinal  Alessandro,  were  four  others  of  Rome’s 
Princes,  two  Archbishops,  seventeen  Bishops,  and 
an  escort  of  reigning  Italian  sovereigns.  Thus  was 
the  humble  Archbishop  brought  in  pomp  to  the 
place  where  all  that  is  mortal  of  him  rests  to  this 
day.  It  is  only  matter  for  regret  that,  fired  no 
doubt  with  devotion  and  caught  with  the  Renais¬ 
sance  spirit  of  splendour  and  display,  they  placed 
over  his  Dominican  habit  the  full  regalia  of  an 
Archbishop.  A  precious  mitre  encircled  his  brow, 
a  glittering  ring  shone  on  his  finger,  a  jewelled 
cross  hung  on  his  breast,  a  gorgeous  cope  com¬ 
passed  him  about.  How  little  could  those  devoted 
men  have  read  the  secret  wishes  of  that  cold,  dead 
heart!  How  vain  would  all  this  have  appeared 
to  the  Saint  himself !  How  utterly  at  cross-pur- 
poses  with  his  life,  his  character,  his  ideals ! 

*  *  *  * 

There  is  another  shrine  which  the  devout  lover 
of  S.  Antonino  finds  perhaps  more  appropriate  and 
more  touching — his  cell  in  S.  Marco.  Here  within 
these  walls,  how  much  of  that  character  was  built 
up  which  has  made  him  revered  in  Florence,  as 
the  most  blessed  of  her  Bishops  for  over  a  thousand 
years !  We  look  round  with  affection  and  love  to 
think  how  much  it  meant,  when  in  those  far-off 


io6 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


days  (which  somehow  here  seem  not  quite  so  dis¬ 
tant)  the  vigorous  Prior  wrought  out  so  many  plans 
for  the  well-being  of  his  brethren  and  the  city. 
In  it  are  gathered  now  his  vestments,  the  death- 
mask,  some  manuscripts  (which  it  requires  a  per¬ 
sistent  visitor  to  get  hold  of)  in  his  execrable  hand¬ 
writing,  and  an  old  portrait.  One  looks  instinc¬ 
tively  for  the  mark  that  the  tilted  chair  dug  into 
the  wall. 

But  in  this  “  narrow  cell  ”  that  S.  Antonino  had 
chosen  for  himself,  Fra  Angelico  has  painted  a 
fresco.  Its  design  was  no  doubt  thought  out  by  the 
friends  in  counsel ;  and  the  Prior  must  have  stood 
and  watched  while  the  artist-friar  in  prayer  worked 
out  with  his  bright  colouring  the  mystery  that  both 
deemed  the  most  appropriate.  It  represents  the 
descent  of  Christ  to  the  departed  in  Limbo.  The 
figure  of  the  Crucified  Saviour,  who  has  not  yet 
burst  through  the  portals  of  the  tomb,  stands  in  soft 
mellow  light  at  the  entrance  of  a  rocky  cave.  In 
front  and  to  the  right  stretch  the  long  line  of 
figures  whose  eyes  gaze  in  rapt  ineffable  adoration 
on  the  face  that  lit  up  for  them  the  gloom  alike 
of  life  and  of  death.  Thronging  together,  their 
hands  uplifted  in  wonder,  their  knees  half -bo wed 
in  worship,  they  stand  for  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  out  of  many  nations  and  centuries  and 
beliefs.  Gathered  from  Earth’s  wide-stretching 
garden,  they  are  the  first  blossoms  that  Christ  shall 
offer  to  His  Father;  and  over  them  all  broods  a 
hushed,  yet  living,  silence.  They  are  the  spirits 
of  the  just  made  perfect,  the  first-fruits  of  the 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


107 


f 


Lamb,  the  eldest-born  of  all  the  Dead.  How  they 
had  waited  in  patience  shut  up  within  their  prison, 
while  through  timeless  aeons  they  looked  out  for 
the  Messias  I  Tired  were  they  and  weary,  expect¬ 
ant  of  release,  yet  knowing  not  day  nor  hour  when 
the  fulness  of  time  should  come.  In  silence  and 
in  hope  was  their  only  and  utter  strength.  So 
Christ  would  have  them  remain  until  He  should 
come. 

And  S.  Antonino,  looking  on  this  as  he  worked 
and  laboured  and  wrote,  learnt  the  lesson  of  life 
as  taught  by  his  friend  Fra  Angelico.  Here,  brim¬ 
ful  of  meaning,  which  yet  would  never  tire  or  make 
afraid,  was  a  splendid  sermon  by  the  most  eloquent 
of  Friar  Preachers. 

He  looked  and  learned  that  patience  in  weariness, 
patience  in  waiting,  patience  in  an  incomplete  state 
of  being  is  the  most  precious  virtue  to  have  at¬ 
tained,  so  that 

“  through  patience  we  might  have  hope.” 


io8 


S.  ANTONINO  AND 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Summa  Moralis ,  by  S.  Antonino,  4  Vols.,  Verona, 
1740. 

Historia  vet  Chronicon,  by  S.  Antonino,  3  Vols., 
Lyons,  1543. 

Bollandists ’  Acta  Sanctorum ,  Vol.  XIV.,  Maii, 
Tom.  I.,  pp.  314-362,  Paris  and  Rome,  1886. 

(a)  Life,  by  Francis  Castiglione,  1460. 

(b)  Notes,  by  Leonard  Ser-Uberti,  O.P.,  1467. 

(c)  Summary  for  Process  of  Canonization,  1459- 

1522. 

Razzi,  O.P.,  Vita,  miracoli  e  translazione  di  S. 
Antonino  archivescovo,  Firenze,  1589. 

Maccarafti ,  Vita  di  S.  Antonino,  Firenze,  1708. 

Echard,  O.B.,  Scriptores  Ordinis  Predicatorum  I., 
817-819,  Paris,  1719. 

Loddi ,  O.P. ,  Memorie  della  genealogia  del  luogo  e 
del  nascimento  di  S.  Antonino,  Firenze,  1731. 

Riposta  a  un  amico  in  ordine  della  genealogia  di 
S.  Antonino,  Firenze,  1744. 

Brocchi,  Vite  dei  Santi  Beati  Fiorentini,  I.,  371- 
418,  Firenze,  1742. 

Tour  on,  O.P.,  Histoire  des  Hommes  illustres  de 
l’Ordre  de  S.  Dominique,  III.,  319-356,  Paris, 
1746. 

Lettere  di  S.  Antonino ,  prefixed  to  Vespesiano  di 
Bisticchi’s  Vite  di  uomini  illustri  del  secule  xv., 
Firenze,  1859. 

Annee  Dominic ai?te,  Mai  2,  279-305,  Lyons,  1891. 

Rosier ,  C.  S.  S.  R.,  Kardinal  Johannes  Dominicis 
Erziehungslehre,  Freibourg  im  B.  I.  Briesgau, 
1894. 


MEDIAEVAL  ECONOMICS 


109 


Moro,  Di  S.  Antonino  in  relazione  alia  riforma  cat- 
tolica  nel  secolo  xv.,  Firenze,  1899. 

G.  S.  Godkin,  The  Monastery  of  S.  Marco,  p.  7-9, 
London,  1901. 

Gardner,  The  Story  of  Florence,  London,  1903. 
Carl  Ilgner,  Die  volkswirtschaftlichen  auschauun- 
gen  Antonins  von  Florenz,  Paderborn,'  1904. 
Mortier,  O.P. ,  Maitres  Generaux  de  l’Ordre  des 
Freres  Preceurs  III.,  546-686,  Rome  1907; 
IV.,  1  5-455,  Paris,  1909. 

Venturi,  S./.,  Storia  della  Compagna  di  Gesii  in 
Italia,  I.,  pp.  277-281,  Milan,  1910. 

P .  L.  Ferretti,  O.P. ,  La  chiesa  et  il  oonvente  di  San 
Domenico  di  Fiesole,  Firenze,  1911. 

N.B. — By  the  courtesy  of  the  Rev.  Michael 
Browne,  O.P.,  the  author  has  been  allowed  the  use 
of  valuable  manuscript-notes  left  by  the  late  Rev. 
Charles  Priest,  O.P.,  at  S.  Peter’s  Priory,  Hinck¬ 
ley,  which  have  been  most  helpful  in  writing  chap¬ 
ters  II.  and  III. 


* 


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...  ,32 

5ioiU 

AUTHOR 

Jarrett,  Bed 

.e  -  « 

TITLE 

S.Antonino  and  mediaeval 
economics 

HC 

hi 

.  J2 


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